Creeping Out
by Cimz
Summary: My name is Abigail Johanna Deveraux. I'm Tom and Alice Horton's cherished great-granddaughter. I was never supposed grow up to be That Woman. But I have. (EJAbby.) Warning for sympathetic portrayal of Nick Fallon. Fic complete!
1. Chapter 1

Creeping Out

**Originally Posted**: March 2014.

**Disclaimer**: Days of Our Lives is the property of Ken Corday and NBC. I can't remember if Sony still owns a piece or not. Either way, not mine!

**Summary**: My name is Abigail Johanna Deveraux. I'm Tom and Alice Horton's cherished great-granddaughter. I was never supposed grow up to be That Woman. But I have. (EJAbby.)

* * *

When I was growing up, it never occurred to me that I might not be good at baking, much less that I might not be an exemplary human being. Remembering that only redoubles my self-loathing now.

Whatever flaws my family might have had, they always told me that I could succeed at anything.

_"You're friendly and warm and kind and determined like your mother, Abigail,"_ my father would say.

_"You're smart and clever and funny like your daddy, Baby,"_ my mother would add.

_"Of course you can write beautifully—that's your parents in you. They fell in love in a newsroom, after all."_

_"How could you be anything but compassionate and driven to help other people? Maybe you're the next Horton doctor. Your Grandma Laura and Grandpa Bill would be so proud, and I know your Great-Grandpa Tom is smiling down on you."_

_"It's not surprising that you're so strong and patient. That's your Grandma Jo in you, Abigail Johanna."_

But most of all they compared me to my Great-Grandma Alice, because that was the highest possible compliment. All of my family loved each other, but my Great-Gram was the one they revered. Alice Grayson Horton was the epitome of everything good. People talked about how her unconditional love made them feel safe in a way that kept them on the right track all of their lives.

Also, they talked about her doughnuts.

And sometimes her chocolate chip cookies.

The woman was a genius in the kitchen.

I wasn't even ten years old the first time I made one of her recipes all by myself. I won first prize in a baking contest.

I was proud, but I must admit that I wasn't surprised. It hadn't occurred to me to doubt myself.

(I learned about self-doubt later in life.)

In any case, when Great-Gram died, we divided up her cookie sheets and mixing bowls and wooden spoons so that every one of us could have something that would remind us of her when we cooked. It's my Uncle Lucas who has the cookie sheets in trust for Great-Gram's namesake, his daughter Allie.

Me? I got the muffin pans. "You'll actually use these," Julie said in a tone that left no room for argument. "You know how bake everything. Half the family has to fake their way through boiling water."

I made muffins and cupcakes a lot more after that. I really can feel Great-Gram with me every time I use them.

_"You're so loved, Abby,"_ she says when I feel alone.

_"Just be strong. He will find his way. He's a Horton,"_ she tells me when I worry about my little brother.

_"Follow your heart, Dear,"_ she tells me when I feel conflicted.

I feel conflicted all the time anymore.

Not least because I'm pretty sure Great-Gram is giving me terrible advice.

My heart would lead me to unforgivable, destructive places if I followed it. It already has.

Still, I hold the muffin pans against me like a shield as I ring the doorbell at the DiMera Mansion. They aren't much, but they are all I have. It isn't as if I could tell a living, breathing person that I've had an affair with the very much taken EJ DiMera and that that is why the whole town shouldn't gang up on me to tell me I should teach his little son Johnny to bake cupcakes.

I don't see why Sami can't teach her own son to bake.

(Wait, yes, I can. That would be because she's an idiot. When her older son—my cousin Will—and I were in middle school, she once showed up at a Halloween party and started chasing the other parents with a knife. All she had to do was carry a cake across a classroom, and she couldn't do that. If you can't carry a cake, how can you bake one? In a way, I feel like I owe it to Johnny. What the hell kind of life will he have if someone else doesn't step in and give him what his self-absorbed, dimwit mother can't?

And when the hell did I become the kind of person who thinks such uncharitable things about the woman whose fiancé she's made love with?)

"Abigail!" Johnny shrieks as soon as Sami opens the door and flies through it, consigning her fiancé and son to me for the morning. Johnny flings himself around my legs and a hundred emotions hit me at once. Guilt is right there at the top, of course, because I've done something that may destroy his happy family. But there's also delight in making him so happy, because he is a genuinely wonderful little boy. And excitement to share one of my hobbies.

"I'm happy to see you, too, Johnny," I tell him.

"You never come around here anymore," he scolds me. It's true; I used to date EJ's brother Chad, and I saw a lot more of Johnny then.

A chill runs down my spine, but it's not because of Johnny's reprimand. It's because EJ has entered the room. I don't see or hear him, but I know he's there. I keep all of my attention on Johnny and pretend that I don't sense EJ's presence. Maybe I can just keep that up for the whole morning.

"Abigail is very busy," EJ corrects Johnny, foiling my plan right away. "She has a new job that takes up a lot of her time. We must be grateful that she is able to spare us a few hours this morning. Perhaps you should tell her thank you."

Johnny hangs his head. "Thank you, Abigail," he says obediently.

"I'm glad that I didn't have work this morning so I could come see you," I tell him, and I mean it. It's only his father I don't want to see. "I brought you something very special."

"Alice Horton's muffin tins," says Johnny firmly. Great-Gram's baking prowess is legend even among those not old enough to remember it, or her.

"Well, yes. We'll use those. But also…" And with a flourish, I pull a child-size apron out of my purse. "This should fit you. You'll look like the great cook you're going to be."

Johnny lets out a whoop of joy and tries to tangle himself into the apron without much success. I reach to help him, but so does EJ and it's inevitable that our hands touch. And as soon as they do, my mind isn't in the living room with a little boy any longer. Instead, I'm in the Horton Cabin with EJ's hands roaming over every inch of my skin until I don't know my own name and everything is possible as long as he doesn't stop.

When I get a grip, Johnny and EJ are both staring at me. "You okay, Abigail?" Johnny asks.

"Just excited about these cupcakes!" I tell him with false enthusiasm. "Race you to the kitchen!"

He takes off and I trot shakily after him. EJ starts to put his hand on my lower back to guide me through the kitchen door, but thinks better of it at the last second and puts some space between us. That doesn't keep me from feeling the heat where his hand should have been.

How could something so wrong have felt so good?

I look at the muffin pan. My great-grandmother would not have known how to answer that question. We didn't have that kind of conversation, of course, but I'm sure that in 90-odd years she was never once with a man who was not my great-grandfather. She would never have wondered why it was that the man who was perfect for her belonged to someone else.

Over the next hour, I try to teach Johnny as my Great-Gram taught me.

"We use real vanilla extract," I tell him. "Never the imitation. It makes a difference."

He nods solemnly, but his father smirks. "It doesn't surprise me, Abigail, that you would never settle for less than the genuine article."

"Why is that?" I ask, glad for the excuse of keeping my eyes on Johnny's shaky hands as he measures the vanilla.

"Because you," he tells me, "happen to be the genuine article yourself. I'm glad that you hold out for what you deserve."

In the grocery store, maybe.

"We add the flour and the milk last," I instruct Johnny. "First a little of one, then a little of the other. They take turns."

"You do milk, I do flour," Johnny decides, and it isn't a bad plan. He's surprisingly adept with his hands for such a small boy.

For a second, I wonder if the dexterity is hereditary and I confirm to myself that I'm going to hell.

The cupcakes go into the oven, and it's on to separating eggs for the frosting. I do that step on my own, and both Johnny and EJ burst into spontaneous applause when I don't break a single yolk or lose track of the smallest fragment of shell.

I laugh and I curtsey and I have to try very hard not to fantasize that it could be like this all the time. EJ is not my fiancé. Johnny is not my son, or stepson, or anything other than my ex-boyfriend's nephew.

As we add the butter, Johnny worries aloud that it looks clumpy and curdled, just the way I did once. "Have faith," I tell him in great-gram's voice. "It looks like a mess now, but things always smooth out if you keep at them long enough."

And a few moments later, we have a perfect bowl of frosting.

Johnny points, his mouth wide open in disbelief. "Look, Dad! Abigail was right! It's all smooth!"

"Abigail is very wise, indeed," EJ tells him.

"Abigail's the greatest," Johnny gushes, and I couldn't be more embarrassed if the frosting suddenly shaped itself into a sculpture of EJ and me in the shower at the gym. "Mom could never do this."

"Different people are good at different things," I tell Johnny. "Aren't you and Sydney good at different things?"

Johnny rolls his eyes. "Sydney's a baby. She's not good at anything yet. That's why we have to protect her."

"Enjoy it while it lasts," I tell Johnny. "Little brothers and sisters get harder to protect the older they get." Suddenly I'm almost doubled over by a rush of fear. Here I am contemplating my home wrecking ways and baking cupcakes for an elementary school potluck, and my little brother is getting ready for a court date this afternoon. I turn my head away from Johnny so he won't see the tears in my eyes.

"Johnny, run upstairs and make sure Sydney's backpack is ready for school," EJ injects swiftly. "The cupcakes won't be ready to frost until they've cooled."

Johnny grumbles, but he goes. I don't have the strength to resist when EJ pulls me into his arms. "I'm sorry. I forgot that Jack Junior's court date is today. If you'd like to go now, I will make absolutely certain that Johnny understands and that the tins and the apron get back to you. You don't need to worry."

I sniffle and try to pull myself together. "It's hours from now. I'll be home in plenty of time to go to the courthouse with him. If I were home now, I'd just be driving him crazy hovering over him."

"You're a good sister."

"I'm a fraud." I roll my eyes and that helps push the tears back. "Everyone holds me up to him as this great example. Look at your sister Abigail, she always does the right thing. Look at your sister Abigail, the model Horton. But you and I both know that what they should be saying is 'Look at your sister Abigail, the two faced homewrecker, and whatever you do don't be anything like her.'"

"No one's home's been wrecked," EJ hisses, urgently but not angrily. He's always gentle with me, and the fact that I know he has the power to wound and would never use it makes me want him all the more. "We like and respect each other and we got carried away a couple of times. You're the same woman you were before it happened."

EJ's smart, brilliant even. I could talk to him about books and art and theater all day and feel like only a moment had passed. But he's wrong about this. I'll never be the same woman I was. I'll always want something I can't have, and hate myself for wanting it.

Luckily, Johnny comes down and we frost the cupcakes and the first ordeal of my day ends.

I'm still a terrible person, but at least I've made nothing worse.

**To be continued.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2**

JJ's day in court goes as well as can be expected, but that doesn't mean it isn't a sea of anxiety and terror.

He sends me out to get him a bottle of water just before it starts, and that's when EJ texts me.

_Thinking of you and your family._

Well, that's nice. But since EJ can never be with me, I'd just as soon he kept his nice thoughts to himself. I consider texting him back to tell him so, even though I know he'd only respond that everyone knows we're friends and it would look odd if he didn't support me on my beloved baby brother's day of reckoning.

My phone buzzes again while I'm still standing there indecisive with JJ's water and two dollars to pay for it in my hand.

_I know Aiden Jennings. He's a terrific attorney. More of a specialist in criminal matters than Justin is, as well._

EJ has a law degree and a great deal of familiarity with the criminal justice system. I know he knows what he's talking about. I know he wouldn't talk up Aiden Jennings if he didn't think he was telling the truth. He's managed to say the only thing that could give me the slightest hint of peace of mind, and now I can't bring myself to tell him to go away (or just block his number) like I know I should. Instead I text back.

_Thank you._

I get an answer instantly.

_Your brother is lucky to have you. There's nothing fraudulent about that, Abigail._

I turn off the phone and bury it deep in my purse before running back to JJ with the overpriced water.

I steadfastly refuse to think about EJ for the rest of the hearing. Instead, I think about other people. That's my job. Every time JJ catches my eye, I need to look calm and confident and supportive. Never nervous. As my mother clutches my hand, I need to feel solid and trustworthy and positive. Never flighty.

I slipped, but I can go back to being the good girl I was born to be.

I can.

The judge has a touch of Anne Milbauer in him. Not more than a touch, thankfully; but he certainly thinks that making an example of a Horton would show the world that he's unbiased and can't be bought. I don't understand this perception that the Hortons somehow have unlimited power and have perpetrated a reign of terror on the town of Salem. So my family refurbished the town square and helped build the hospital. That's not exactly the same as running a criminal empire.

Still, when the judge talks about not making assumptions because someone is from a good family, I believe deep in my heart that he must somehow be thinking about me, not JJ. JJ has owned up to his mistakes and fought back from his bad choices. My mistakes are hidden.

As EJ promised, though, Aiden Jennings is good at his job. When the hearing ends, JJ is sentenced to nothing worse than community service and the rest of the family gathers for a celebratory party.

I find myself off in a corner with Will, which is nice. We've known each other all our lives and he's one of the most understanding people in the world. About the only thing he wouldn't forgive me is the affair I've had with his mother's fiancé.

"Johnny texted me a picture of the cupcakes you baked this morning," Will starts, putting EJ in the air between us as soon as possible. "Thank you so much for doing that. I don't want to think about what would have happened if Mom had given it a try."

I force a laugh. "I'm sure it would have been fine."

Will cocks his head and looks at me as if I've taken leave of my senses. "No, it wouldn't have. It would have been a disaster. I would have starved to death growing up if Dad couldn't cook. Or if the Pub didn't have takeout. Or if my friends' parents didn't say 'Poor Will, we always try to feed you because we never know what's going to be going on at your house.' And then Mom would act all offended, and I'd be like 'you know it's true,' and she'd mumble and change the subject. It's better that now she lives in a mansion with a kitchen staff."

"Are you excited about your mom and EJ getting married?" I ask, just to torture myself. I deserve it.

To my surprise, he glances around and lowers his voice. "She's my mom and I want her to have what makes her happy."

"But you like EJ," I prompt, lowering my own voice in turn.

"He's helped me out," Will says tersely. "I was going through some stuff and he helped me out. He loves his kids and he's smart and powerful and handsome."

I'm not going to argue with any of that. Especially the handsome part. "You're worried that they aren't right together?" My heart is pounding so hard I'm afraid Will can hear it. There's someone in the world besides me who doesn't think EJ and Sami are written in the stars, and it's someone who is close enough to them to know.

"I can't understand wanting to marry a man you've shot in the head," said Will with a bluntness I haven't heard him use in ages. The long process of coming out of the closet and becoming a father exhausted him; now that he has a boyfriend and a baby to love, he seems much stronger. "I can't understand wanting to marry a man who threatened your children. Who tried to kill your children's father. Who raped you more than once. Mom and EJ are violent and they're volatile and—" Will breaks off. "But I want what she wants," he corrects, normal and steady again.

"Do you still want your parents together?" I wonder aloud. That's what we bonded over as children, Will and I. Wanting our parents together. Scheming to get our parents together. Keeping our parents together against all odds.

"No!" Will shakes his head. "Thank God that's over. I can't believe we used to waste so much time playing matchmaker when we were kids."

"I never felt like it was a waste of time." My eyes seek out the portrait of my father with baby JJ on his hip and his other arm around me. It's sitting on the table across the room. I can't really see it from where we are, but I don't need to. Knowing it's there is enough.

"I'm sorry, Abs," says Will. I don't know if he knows what I'm trying to look at, but he can probably guess. "Your parents were different."

"Maybe not." A heavy sigh escapes me. "I don't know what would have happened if my dad had lived. I bet JJ wouldn't have spent the morning in court, but—"

"It all worked out," Will reminds me gently.

"I always thought my parents' love story was so beautiful. He was so handsome, my dad, and so smart and so worldly. But he'd done things, in the past, and he thought he deserved to be alone forever. He never would have gone after my mom. She was the one who went after him, at first. She was sure that there was goodness there, warmth and decency that everyone else was afraid to see. Goodness that he was afraid to see. And he, he treated her like a partner. She was never his damsel in distress who needed saving. She was his equal. He valued her thoughts whether they were at work or at home. They were just a perfect match. They wanted the same things. They liked the same things. They needed the same things. They had the same sense of humor. That was what I always wanted, you know?"

"You'll have it someday."

I shake my head. "I won't."

"That guy," Will accuses, but I know he isn't accusing me. "Last time we talked, you said there was an older man."

"And I told you it was over."

"Is it still over?"

"Yes. It has to be."

"When was the last time you talked to him? Have you talked to him today?"

"Kind of busy with family things today to reignite an inappropriate affair," I say, gesturing around the room and hoping Will doesn't notice I dodged the question.

"I guess," he agrees. "Is he the problem? Did he tell you that you'd never find the right person? Did he make you feel that way?"

"No. No, he told me the exact opposite. He told me I'd be fine. He told me I was beautiful and intelligent and unique…"

"He's not wrong about that. So why would you feel like you'll never have that kind of relationship?"

I force a smile, then drop it when I see Will isn't buying it. "If it was going to happen, it would have happened by now."

"You're twenty-five," says Will, like that's all the argument he needs.

"So? You're younger than I am and you're paired up with the love of your life."

"I was really lucky. Sonny walked into my life and made it easy on me. We're the exception, not the rule. People look at us and think we got too serious too young. Then people say stupid things to gorgeous smart women like you and Gabi like you're running out of time or something. Like everyone's life is supposed to be in exact lockstep. That's not how it works."

"I know. If it were any other day, I'd agree with you. I'd tell you I know things will be fine. I'd tell you things are fine."

"If it's not about this older guy, is it about Chad?" Will persists.

"Chad never really wanted me. He was okay with having me when he couldn't have Melanie. And then there was Cameron." I roll my eyes. "If he really cared, he wouldn't have handed me to Chad like a fake brain tumor consolation gift." Will stifles a giggle and I start to feel better in spite of myself. "The first guy I really cared for, I really thought I could make anything work for him, was Max, but he wanted to date anyone other than me, including his nieces."

Will raises an eyebrow. "Especially his nieces. Bet he would have changed teams and dated me if I'd been out at the time."

This time I laugh for real. "Well, you are irresistible."

"Don't worry," he whispers conspiratorially. "So are you. It runs in the family."

"_Love_ runs in the family," I correct him. I gesture toward our great-grandmother's favorite chair. "She'd always tell us to follow our hearts. My heart is telling me to want things my head knows I'll never be able to have. It's my destiny."

"That's not you. I spent my childhood up close and personal with my mom, who really does want what she can't have. She's addicted to it. That's why she destroys great guys like my dad and Rafe when she has them, and then gets into the most toxic relationship possible and calls it the greatest love of her life."

"Maybe I should have stayed with Josh," I muse.

"That nerdy guy you dated for two weeks in high school? You were always into Max."

"And Max was the guy I could never have. Josh was the good guy I could have had. Maybe he was my Rafe. The guy I should have just stayed with." I would have been bored to death. I would have cheated on him with EJ.

"Did you just say _your Rafe_?" Uncle Lucas interrupts us with a beautiful dark-haired woman in tow. I hadn't known he was seeing anyone, but it must be serious if he's bringing her to family events. Especially when the family event is about how nice it is that the resident teenager won't be going to jail after all. "Because I don't think Jordan would take that well."

"We were speaking metaphorically, Dad." Will clasps his father's hand and half-hugs him. "This is why you shouldn't eavesdrop."

"You can't blame me for being concerned about my niece." He mock-looks me up and down. "Don't get involved with anyone who used to be married to Will's mother, okay?"

As I look wildly around for a path of escape, I catch a glimpse of Lucas' date's face. I could swear she's thinking that staying away from Sami's exes narrows down the dating pool in Salem considerably. Or maybe I'm projecting. Then she catches my eye and smiles a little, and I think I'm probably not. She's obviously met Sami already.

"Will," says Uncle Lucas firmly. "I'd like you to meet someone. This is Sheryl Connors. Sheryl, this is my son Will and my niece Abigail."

We exchange pleasantries, and I bow out as gracefully as I can so Sheryl can try to ingratiate herself to Will without the distraction of me.

A distraction is all I'll ever be.

**TBC**


	3. Chapter 3

**Part 3**

As soon as I leave Will, I realize that there is no one else that I want to talk to in the room. The thought of having to smile and pretend that I'm still the Horton princess I was always meant to be triggers a wave of nausea so strong that I clap my hand over my mouth and make a beeline for the front door.

Once I'm in the fresh air, I walk as fast as I can so that my thoughts can't catch up with me. Before I know it, I'm in the Horton Square. It's ridiculous that my feet would have taken me here. It's one more reminder of how completely I've failed.

Even worse, he's there.

Of course he is.

He's there, and he's with Sami, and they're together like the engaged couple that they are. He loves her completely; anyone can tell. I toss aside the hope Will had given me. Whatever Will thinks, this is a romance that is going to succeed. What woman wouldn't do anything for a life with EJ?

Sami rushes off to do Sami things (kidnapping her own sister, dressing up in drag and calling herself Stan, whatever), and EJ turns to face me. The way he swings toward me is breathtakingly attractive. Like he'd felt me approach. Like he'd been spun by a magnet. Like he could take one more step and have me up against the brick wall…

I swallow hard. That will never happen again.

"I wonder if you have some time," I say hesitantly. I can't demand his time. I'm not entitled to it. But I can ask, and maybe he'll pity me.

He doesn't answer aloud, just gestures using only his jaw that we should move somewhere more secluded.

"So," he says when we're alone. "What's wrong?"

"Just, you know. One of those days I guess." I swallow hard again, not wanting all of my innermost thoughts to spill all over EJ in a rush of tears and pain. He gets enough of a lack of self control from Sami. "I should tell you, my brother got probation."

"That's wonderful news."

"Yeah. Thank you for your texts." I want the words back as soon as I say them. I didn't mean to encourage him. "It means a lot that you were thinking of JJ and me."

"Of course I was." He stands there, waiting. He knows that that wasn't why I wanted to talk to him. I could have returned his texts if that was all I wanted him to know.

"I saw you," I say as levelly as I can. "I saw you holding Sami's hands."

His whole body hardens and the gentleness leaves his voice. "Abigail, I think you've understood from the very beginning how I feel about Samantha."

The thing is, I did. All along, I told him that I was an adult capable of making my own decisions. I told him that I knew that what we were doing was wrong and that we should stop. I told him that I understood how much he valued his family. I told him that I was wracked with guilt at the possibility of hurting his children. I told him that I was afraid that he didn't care about me, even a little bit, because he so obviously loved Sami and had come to me on Smith Island that first day at her command.

He had told me, then, that what had happened between us wasn't a chore or a duty or an embarrassment. He'd told me that it was _quite lovely._

And every fiber of me needs to hear it again, just one more time. The day has worn me down: the cupcakes and the hearing and facing the reality that I will never be as happy as Will

"I know how you feel about her now," I tell him. "But did you feel that way about her before, on Smith Island? The other times that we've been together?"

He looks kinder again, but he doesn't want to soothe me. "Abigail, please."

"Look, I know Sami always forgives you for… whatever. I've heard some of the crazy stories about the stuff you guys have done to each other." I've heard all of them. Will always gets dragged into the middle, and Will and I talk. Suddenly I'm angry again. Sami shoots EJ in the head, and he loves her. He loves her and not me and it isn't fair. Just for a second, I want him to remember what it feels like to be the one who is not in control instead of the one who gets to bounce between women as the mood strikes him. "But if Sami knew about us, do you think she would forgive you? Would Sami?"

I'm bluffing, of course. I would never tell Sami. I don't want to hurt Johnny or Sydney or Will. I don't want Mom and JJ and the rest of my family to know how awful I've become.

But for a second, EJ looks worried and I relish the illusion of being in charge of my own life.

Suddenly, the secluded grove isn't private enough for EJ. "We shouldn't talk here," he says.

"You're right," I agree, and my voice is steadier now that I'm letting myself be vengeful instead of hurt. "You're right, here is bad. What about the cabin on Smith Island? Or the storage room at the hospital? No? The shower at your gym, then?"

"Abigail," he says, and I can't let myself get lost in the way he says my name. Not when he could be so connected to me one moment and holding Sami's hands the next.

"I'm just trying to figure out one thing, EJ. Between all of the lies and the manipulation and the walls that you put up around yourself, do you even know who the real EJ is? Because I don't."

Chameleon that he is, he turns it around on me. "Abigail, you need to be honest with yourself, okay?"

"_Me_?"

"If I had been truthful with Samantha from the start, what good, exactly, do you think that it would have done, hmm? Who do you think it would have benefited? You? Me? It would have hurt people. Members of your family."

Even though I think those exact same things, it irritates me to hear them come out of his mouth. "Don't do that. Don't pretend like you care about my family, what they think, how they feel. You're worried about your family. You're worried about Johnny, and Sydney, and Will, and that's fine-"

"Samantha." He just has to bring her into it. He sure didn't seem like he was thinking of her in the cabin or the shower. "You forgot to include her. I love all of them, and you may not want to hear it, but I do love Samantha."

"Fine," I say. I still want one more assurance that what had happened between us wasn't all in my head, but I'm going to get it. "Yeah, tell yourself whatever you need to."

"Abigail, listen-"

But I'm done listening. I haven't gotten what I came for, and he isn't going to get what he wants from me, either. He won't confirm that what happened between us was real, and I won't confirm that it was some meaningless way to pass the time while he waited for Sami to forgive their latest spat. "No, EJ, when you're alone with Sami, if that ever happens anymore, and you say those words to her, is that the real EJ, speaking from the heart? I'm asking because I just want to understand. I do, I just- I just want to know, because, the guy on Smith Island, at the cabin, and the one in the shower with me, who is he? What's that man really feeling? When you figure it out, I'd love to know."

I can see his jaw working; it's one of his many tells. I've made him as uncomfortable as I am, and that will have to be enough for now.

It will have to be enough for forever.

I need to resign myself- really resign myself- to the idea that he will never again tell me that our time together was _quite lovely_. And we won't have more _quite lovely_ times in the future.

I brush past him and don't look back. Getting the last word is a small consolation when what I'd wanted was his heart, mind, and soul on a platter.

I've never been much of a drinker, but I feel like if any day ever needed to be capped off by a glass of red wine, this is the one.

When the wine is in front of me, though, my stomach roils again and I push it away. The scent is too much. My mind is full of thoughts of EJ's skin against mine.

_Quite lovely._

I told him that I would have to move back to Europe to get away from the shame.

He'd told me it had been _quite lovely._

It's not a drink that I need. It's a break. A break from being cajoled into baking cookies with Sami and EJ's child. A break from sitting bolt upright in a courtroom, a supposed paragon of virtue, when I know that inside I'm a decaying mess. A break from seeking fresh air and finding EJ's cologne instead.

I need to put an ocean between EJ and me before I turn into someone who is forever asking him for something he doesn't want to give me. It's bad enough that I've slept with an engaged man. There's no need to make it worse by becoming a stalker and a blackmailer.

* * *

I bury myself in work for the rest of the week. It keeps my mind off of EJ, and, more importantly, it gets me one step closer to a transatlantic flight. I don't want to leave Mom in the lurch, after all. I have to be able to tell her that everything is set to take care of itself for a month.

For now, I avoid Mom, and JJ, too. Most of all, I avoid EJ.

I work at work, I work at home, and I work during every meal. I'm so deeply engaged in a spreadsheet as I sit in a corner booth of the Pub that I nearly jump out of my skin when my cousin Nick sits down across from me.

"Didn't mean to startle you," he says in a tone that clearly indicates that he did. Nick used to be the sweetest, kindest, gentlest, smartest man on the planet. When he says that he can be that man again, I want to believe him with every fiber of my being. I love him completely. He's my family.

But now there's always a smug sneer lurking just below his surface. He used to be almost embarrassed by his own intelligence and eternally patient in explaining the things he understood instantly when someone else needed help. Now he's constantly implying that his brain is a weapon to be used against the rest of us. It both frightens and depresses me.

"I'm really busy, Nick," I tell him, and for the smallest of seconds I see a flash of lonely pain in his eyes. I see the old Nick, alone and desperate for acceptance.

I'm a soft touch.

"But not too busy for you," I tell him.

"You did promise that we'd get together," he reminds me, and a veiled threat has replaced the vulnerability again. I feel an odd sort of kinship for my cousin. I'd done the same thing to EJ: threatened him because I wanted a kindness he couldn't give me.

"I'm sorry, Nick. I've been crazy busy with work." I gesture at the documents around me.

"Is that all you've been busy with?" he asks not-so-innocently.

"Ever since my brother got probation, yeah."

"What about before that?" Nick pushes. "What were you up to while I was gone? I know it must have been something, since you didn't even notice that I dropped off the face of the earth. A smart girl like you, someone who always thought family was the most important thing, never even questioned it."

My throat tightens. "I questioned it. I was worried, Nick." It's the truth. I want Nick to be back to his old self, not bleeding and dying and frightened.

"Why didn't you tell someone? You never even went to Hope."

"I started to."

"And then?"

"And then you showed up at Ari's christening."

"Hope was there too. What made you not walk across the room to see her before I came in?"

"Isn't the important thing that you're back?"

He leans back against the booth, victorious. "That's not an answer."

My frustration bubbles to the surface. "What do you want, Nick?"

"I want us to be friends, like we used to be. I want you to care whether I live or die."

"I do."

"I want you to care more about that than about…" And Nick makes a gesture that leaves me in no doubt.

He knows about EJ and me. He knows that Sami sent EJ to shut me up about Nick's disappearance. He knows that EJ shut me up by taking me to bed.

"I do, okay?" I snap. "It was a mistake. It was a mistake I was going to fix and then you showed up. It's over now and the reason I'm working so hard is so I can get as far away from Salem as possible as soon as possible. Do you have a problem with that?"

And just like that, my Nick is back. "Oh my God, Abby," he whispers, and the almost involuntary use of my childhood nickname doesn't escape me. "You fell in love with him, didn't you?"

I've never said it, not to EJ and not to myself. I don't say it now, but I do nod "yes" to the most dangerous, unstable person I know (other than EJ himself, of course). "It doesn't matter."

"It does." Nick takes my hand. "You love him and he was stupid enough to throw you away. Loving someone who doesn't love you back sucks."

The concern feels different coming from Nick rather than from Will. Will has never really felt unrequited love. Nick has felt it too much. "It is what it is," I say.

"Don't you ever want to punish him?"

"No," I lie, and I'm terrified that I've made a dangerous mistake by treating Bad Nick as if he's Good Nick.

"Never?" Nick drawls, and he removes an envelope from the inside of his coat. He passes it across the table to me.

In the envelope are a series of pictures taken through the window of the cabin on Smith Island. The pictures leave no doubt as to what EJ and I did that day.

**TBC**.


	4. Chapter 4

**Part 4**

As usual, the memories hit me so hard they almost rock me. EJ lifting me up, EJ wrapped around me, EJ inside me.

I hastily flip through the photographs. Thankfully, none of them show that last memory. Still, this is a horrible invasion of privacy, and, almost worse, Nick is my _cousin_. I don't want him to see this kind of thing any more than I'd want Will to see it.

"So before you crashed Ari's christening, you decided to peek through a window and document your cousin's sex life for posterity?" I ask coolly.

He squeezes his eyes shut for a second like he's as grossed out at the thought as I am, which I'm quite sure isn't possible. "No. I didn't take them."

"Who did?"

"Percy Ruggles."

The name means nothing to me and I gesture to Nick to go on.

"He's an associate of mine."

That isn't much more helpful. I gesture at Nick again, more annoyed now.

"He's into bird watching. He was watching and he saw me almost die and he saved me."

"And he didn't just call the police?"

"When you've spent time in prison, that isn't your first choice," Nick tells me, his voice hard and brittle. "I asked him to take a look around Salem at the people who were covering up what happened to me. EJ and Sami were the targets. Not you."

"But now I'm caught in the middle."

"You don't have to be," Nick says. "You can be on my side. Make them pay. Make EJ pay for using you like he did, making you think he cared when all he wanted was to shut you up and roll around the sheets with a younger woman."

"EJ isn't like that," I defend. I'm surprised at my own vehemence, because I'm not completely sure that EJ isn't like that. I don't think EJ himself knows whether EJ is like that.

Nick is unimpressed, but in his superior, detached way, not the fiery way my family usually is about EJ. "You know how EJ and Sami got together, right? He raped her."

I've heard the story, of course, but I've had my doubts. I don't think Sami Brady has ever been unwilling with any man who wanted her, and they all want her. Knowing EJ like I do, I have a hard time imagining that she really didn't want him. In my mind's eye, I see her concocting the story because she can't bear to be viewed as a slut- worse, a slut who left my Uncle Lucas to freeze to death while she scratched an itch with another man.

I don't say any of this to Nick; my feminist ideals and my guilt over making love with an engaged man prevent it. But he looks at the mutinous expression on my face and smirks.

"You doubt it?" he asks. "I worked at the hospital back then. She came to me begging me to change the results of the paternity test. She thought that EJ would hurt her and the baby if he ever found out." He holds up a hand to stop my protest. "Yeah, I know. Sami Brady never met a paternity test she didn't try to change."

I can't stop myself from laughing out loud, because that was exactly what I was about to say. Good Nick escapes to give me a tiny smile before Bad Nick takes over again. He leans across the table and lowers his voice. "But believe me, I know a lack of consent when I see it."

And just like that, I'm horrified for both Good Nick and Bad Nick. I always knew where Bad Nick came from. Bad Nick appeared when Good Nick was raped in prison. Gabi even told me that Nick was able to articulate it himself: that he'd lost himself in a sea of rapes and beatings and didn't even know what he thought or felt any longer. But it's not something we've discussed, Nick and I.

Nick needs a therapist a lot more than he needs to blackmail EJ. He claims he's seeing someone, but I have a hard time believing he's telling the truth. Maybe I should find a way to suggest to Julie that she should make a habit of accompanying him to his appointments. Julie's the only one who could possibly convince Nick, and I might be the only one who can convince Julie, since Julie tends to think that everyone else is out to get Nick. But Doug and Julie are off on another cruise, so that's an idea that will have to wait.

"Regardless of what EJ did or didn't do to me or Sami," I tell Nick carefully, "What do you plan to do with those pictures?"

"Nothing." He points at the envelope. "They're in your hands now. Literally."

"And you don't have copies?"

"I do," he admits. "But I have plenty of leverage without them. I don't want to hurt innocent people, Abigail."

I shove the envelope into my purse. "I think we've established that I'm not that innocent."

His face softens completely. "You're so much more innocent than you think you are."

Despite the fact that he's just admitted to blackmailing the man I love, I squeeze his hand. "I wish I could say the same thing to you."

"I wish you could, too," he says, and his voice cracks. I'm ready to drop everything and frog-march him to a good psychiatrist, move him into Great-Gram's house, and find a way to remind him that love is stronger than anything else and that somehow he can forgive EJ and Sami and Kate and even the animal that violated him over and over and over in prison.

But then every hint of Good Nick evaporates, and without turning I know who has just come into the Pub.

EJ and Sami, of course.

It's my own fault for working in Sami's family's business, but after days of feeling too nauseous to eat I'd suddenly had a desperate craving for the chowder.

Sami and EJ have Johnny and Sydney with them, and Sami sends the children ahead to the kitchen before tightening her hand on my shoulder. I hate the way it feels. Sami is the last person I want touching me. I know exactly where her hands have been. "Abigail, is Nick getting in your way while you're trying to work?"

Bad Nick's eyes dance with mirth at the idea that Sami is trying to protect her fiance's mistress.

"No," I assure Sami. "I was just leaving anyway. I have to get back to the hospital."

"Are you sure you aren't working too hard?" Sami asks with a concern she has no business having. "EJ mentioned that he never sees you when he's at the hospital for board meetings anymore."

So EJ mentioned to his fiance that he's been looking for his mistress and hasn't been able to find her. It's good for my ego, and bad for my already confused heart.

"I'm taking a trip," I tell Sami, because it's the best way to tell EJ without looking at him or talking to him. "I'm going to visit some friends in Europe. I need to get work in order before I go."

"Good," injects EJ. "I'm sure you'll find more pleasant dining companions on the continent."

"More pleasant companions of all sorts, no doubt," says Nick with a broad, shit-eating smile. "Are you thinking of Paris, Abigail? It's such a romantic city. A city for lovers. A beautiful woman like you-"

"For God's sake, she's your cousin! Shut up about her love life!" Sami objects. It's good that she's busy yelling, because she doesn't notice that EJ's shoulders have tensed, his jaw has tightened, and his veins are popping out of his head. Or does she ever notice those things? Is it just me who does?

"You're right," agrees Nick. "We should all focus on our own love lives. Gabi, me, EJ, Abigail…"

Sami is in such a fury at the mention of Gabi's name that she doesn't notice Nick's deliberate pairing of EJ and me. EJ certainly does, though, and I can see him subtly gesturing to me not to worry, not to give anything away. It's almost lost in Sami's histrionics.

It strikes me how similar Nick and EJ are in this moment. Nick sends messages to EJ that Sami misses while EJ sends messages to me that Nick misses. Each is convinced that he can outmaneuver the other. Each is convinced that he can sink lower than the other. Each lies so much that he doesn't know who he is. EJ has more experience and resources, but Nick has a genius IQ and less to lose.

They deserve each other.

It's a shame that someone is going to get caught in the crossfire.

When Sami simmers down about Gabi, which takes a good long while, she goes to check on Johnny and Sydney and EJ makes up an obvious lie about needing to talk to me about highly confidential hospital business for just a moment.

We step outside onto the public street to discuss our fictitious highly confidential business, as people do.

"I don't want you to worry, Abigail," EJ whispers when we're alone. I look around for bird watchers, but can't find any. "I have Nick under control. I've given him just enough rope to hang himself. He's throwing everything he can think of at the wall hoping something will stick. Those comments that implied that he knows something about you and me were just testing, looking for a reaction that might mean something. I'm pleased that you didn't rise to the bait. You're uncommonly adept at this sort of maneuver, Abigail."

I glow with pride at his praise, misplaced though it may be.

"I'm going to protect all of you," EJ continues. "Samantha and William and Gabriela, and you. Especially you. None of this mess was of your making." His hands are on my upper arms. He hasn't touched me for nearly a week. I haven't let him get this close for nearly a week. Now I want to drink in his essence and bask in the knowledge that he wants to protect me. "Just remember, Nick knows nothing."

And because I know that what EJ and I shared is meaningful even if EJ won't admit it, I remove the envelope of photographs from my purse. "Nick wasn't bluffing," I tell EJ. "He knows. He just gave me these."

With that, EJ is no longer in control. "Bloody hell!" he spits. "He's going to drag you into this because I stopped you from taking your suspicions to Hope."

"He says he's not."

EJ stares at me, dumbfounded. "You believe that he won't use information that could make two of the people he hates most very unhappy."

I give EJ a tiny, confident smile. "Nick hates you and Sami, but he likes me."

"Did he promise you he doesn't have more copies of these?"

I shake my head. "Quite the contrary. He assured me that he does."

EJ is even more rattled at my unconcern. "Don't tell me you've thrown in your lot with that… that…"

"Cousin?" I supply helpfully. I try not to laugh. I should tell EJ that of course I'm not going to help Nick destroy himself or anyone else, but witnessing EJ off-balance is the most fun I've had in a long time.

"William is also your cousin," he points out. "As is Sonny. And Gabriela is meant to be your dearest friend."

"Nick likes Gabi, too," I remind EJ, as if he'd been able to forget the way Sami had taken leave of her senses at the thought of Will's baby-mama finding herself drawn to Nick. "It's really only Sami and Kate and you that he just can't stand. I can't imagine why. I find you simply charming." I flick my fingers against the envelope. "But you knew that already."

"So you're going to punish me. That's how you're going to do it."

"Would you find me a worthy adversary if I did?"

"Too worthy," he groans. "Far too worthy. Abigail…"

I decide to put him out of his misery. "What I said to Sami back there was the truth. I'm leaving for Europe the day after tomorrow. I'm not staying here to help Nick do anything."

"Then why would he give you the photographs?"

"I told you. He says he doesn't want to see me hurt."

"And you believe him? You can't possibly believe him. He's a threat. Those photographs are a threat. He's too arrogant to-"

"Too arrogant to believe that he has ways of getting what he wants from you without hurting me?" I ask.

I don't necessarily believe Nick, but I'm tired of EJ acting like he has all the answers and makes all the decisions.

Just as I did long days before, I walk away from EJ.

Just as it did before, it hurts.

Two days later, I'm on a plane high above the Atlantic Ocean. EJ can deal with his problems by himself.

**TBC**


	5. Chapter 5

**Part 5**

The flight attendants try to feed me half a dozen times during the long flight, but I wave away dinner, breakfast, and the assorted snacks. Again, I feel too queasy to eat.

I ignore my implacable stomach and try to calm my racing mind instead. At the last moment, I'd exchanged my ticket to Paris for one to London. Nick's obnoxious comments about Paris being a city for lovers soured me on the idea; I knew that all I would be able to think about was sharing the city with EJ.

When the airline had told me that London was only change in itinerary I could make without forfeiting my money and starting over, I agreed without thinking. Anything but Paris, the city of love and romance.

Now, sitting on the plane, I hear men and women speaking with accents just like EJ's.

I see Burberry plaid peeking out from the lining of coats just like EJ's.

I even smell tea that is just the same kind that EJ drinks.

I berate myself for a moment for trying to escape thoughts of EJ by running to his homeland (or one of his many homelands; he's like me in having several). But then I sigh and give myself a break. It doesn't matter where I go; my thoughts will come with me. Edna St. Vincent Millay could have told me that a century ago.

_There are a hundred places where I fear  
To go,—so with his memory they brim.  
And entering with relief some quiet place  
Where never fell his foot or shone his face  
I say, "There is no memory of him here!"  
And so stand stricken, so remembering him._

My goal isn't to forget. That would be pointless. My goal is to get enough space to enjoy the rest of my life without EJ summoning me to talk about Nick's ridiculous photographs.

Besides, I only plan to stay in England for a few days. I'll catch up with friends, visit a few of my favorite places from when my parents lived there, and then head back to Spain to visit my former classmates. Or I might want to try Ireland first; I haven't been there since my mother's unfortunate assignation with Colin Murphy (the less said, the better, although I did learn how to dance an Irish jig).

I may have justified myself to myself, but falling asleep is out of the question and I'm exhausted by the time we land at Heathrow.

I stumble off the plane and through customs and security. I barely have the wherewithal to block EJ's number once I'm allowed to turn my phone on again. I'm trying to remember which way to go to get a cab (I'm not feeling up to navigating the Tube, although it's really very nice as subways go) when I hear excited voices calling my name.

"Abigail! Over here!"

Chelsea and Max are waving at me like idiots. First a grin splits my face at the image they make, but then tears threaten to spill down my cheeks. I hadn't asked them to meet me at the airport. I hadn't expected them to. I know my way around London and don't need any help. But they decided to come and take care of me anyway, just because.

I don't know when I became so over-emotional that I'm completely overwhelmed by a small kindness. I manage to get a grip while they're hugging me.

Without being asked, Max appropriates both my oversized purse carry-on and my wheeled suitcase. Chelsea throws her arm around my shoulders. "You didn't have to pick me up."

"We wanted to." Chelsea gives me another hard squeeze. "And it's a good thing we did because I'm not sure you would have made it without us. You look awful."

I roll my eyes, although I don't doubt that I look as worn out as I feel. "Thank you."

"I think you look beautiful, Abigail," says Max.

"I always did like you," I tell him, and hearing the words roll off my tongue gives me a wave of strength. I had had a crush on Max from the moment I met him, and he had always known it. Once in a while he had teased me with the thought that maybe he could return my feelings, but at the end of the day I had never been what he wanted.

Now, suddenly, I can joke about liking him as if my liking were tied to a compliment, as if my love were disposable. There's no longer anything sad about my affection for the unattainable Max now that I've found someone more unattainable to pine for.

I'd joked with Will about Max preferring to date his nieces, but it was more that Max had a type: brazen, reckless, and, above all, unwilling to be attached. Max changes girlfriends more often than some people change socks. Chelsea is like that, too, with men, so of course they've tried to date a few times, always ending amicably when one of them gets bored or distracted.

But I was always the good girl, blathering about loyalty and permanence and taking things slow. Chelsea used to try to wear the barely-there lingerie gifted to her by her grandmother's fashion house to church, and then accuse me of dressing like a nun because my dress covered my stomach.

I smile at the memory.

"What?" Chelsea asks.

"Remember the time we were getting ready to go to a wedding and you wanted to wear-"

"Oh my God, that sparkly little thing with the bare midriff?" Chelsea cackles, remembering instantly. "It covered about as much of me as dental floss would have. Thank God my dad put his foot down and made me change."

"You told me that I could meet the love of my life at the wedding and I'd never know it because he wouldn't notice me because of the way I was dressed," I recall.

"I'm glad you were too smart to listen to me. You knew who you were even when we were sixteen. And you knew that you didn't need to run around naked to get the kind of attention you wanted."

"Maybe," I agree. What I want to say is that running around naked never got me what I wanted, either, but I decide not to scandalize Max.

"Maybe?"

"I think you were the one who knew who you were. You… understood things then that I'm still learning now. You knew that you had to take chances and try things and that life won't just happen to you if you sit there like a good girl and wait for it."

"Too many chances," says Chelsea, and because she accidentally killed two people before she turned nineteen I don't correct her. I know her well enough to know that she doesn't want me to. Whenever I see Chelsea, it's easy to fall back into our friendship no matter how long we've been apart. She, with occasional input from Max, spends the next twenty minutes asking me how so-and-so is doing and whether such-and-such is still the same in Salem. I answer, relishing the feeling of catching up, but I get more and more tired. It's as if being with Chelsea and Max, who I've known forever, has signaled my body to give up and relax for the first time in months.

I fall into an exhausted sleep as soon as we get to the apartment Max and Chelsea share. Despite their past, they have no trouble watching each other bring dates home as roommates. They aren't like me. They have no trouble letting go.

When I wake up, I have no idea what time it is in Salem or in London. As best as I can tell, I've been asleep all day and evening is falling. I creep cautiously into the front room, where Max is scowling at his laptop. His scowl melts off his face when he sees me.

"Look who decided to wake up."

"I'm sorry," I tell him. "I didn't mean to come to your home and crash on you like that."

"It's what we're here for. Here at Benson and Brady we like to provide a full-service bed and breakfast." He adopts a terrible English accent. "Would you like some bangers and mash, luv?"

I haven't eaten for at least a day but the thought of that much grease still makes me cringe and clutch my empty stomach defensively. "Maybe just toast?"

He jumps up. "You've got it." He heads for the kitchen area and I follow him. "Are you sick?" he asks after a moment. "Chelsea was afraid you were. She almost called out of work to stay here."

"I think I'm okay. Just tired from trying to wrap everything up in Salem so I could come over here, you know?"

"You work at the hospital now?" he asks.

I nod. "Yeah." I take a bite of toast and it's the most delicious thing I've ever tasted.

"I just couldn't stand it there." Max and Chelsea originally came to London planning to study medicine. Chelsea followed through and got her certification in physical, behavioral, and occupational therapy, but Max drifted back to his original calling: fast cars. "I felt like such an idiot, saying I'd rather be a mechanic than a doctor."

"The world needs both," I point out. "It's so much better that you knew what you wanted." I gesture at him with the toast. "But if you change your mind again, you should think about becoming a chef. You're very talented. This is the best toast ever."

"Then you should have some more." He drops two more slices of bread into the toaster.

I hadn't really been hinting at him, but the toast is helping me feel the best I've felt in a week so I let him go. I'll do something nice for him tomorrow.

"It surprised me that you ever gave up cars," I tell Max. "You loved driving. You loved being a mechanic. The only part you didn't like was doing the books."

"But I had you to come over and do them for me, and I always enjoyed that."

"Me too." Even without factoring in my wild crush on Max, working in his shop had been a welcome break from long hours in the library or the craziness of my family. There was something blissfully straightforward about using a lug wrench or balancing a ledger. "Those were some of the most special times I ever had."

Max sighs. "Nice as this trip down memory lane has been, I have to get back to my current books for my current business."

"Let me do it!" I volunteer eagerly. It's the least I can do to repay his and Chelsea's kindness, and it will probably be just as comforting in its simplicity now as it was back then.

"I can't let you do that. You're obviously wiped out. If Chelsea came home and found out I put you to work, she'd have my head."

"At least let me look over where you were stuck when I came in," I wheedle. It's amazing. Max is a genius at higher math but he struggles with a spreadsheet of basic arithmetic. Nick told me once that that's not at all uncommon, and with all his experience studying and teaching science Nick would know, but it still strikes me as odd.

Max acquiesces and we spend the next hour together on the couch whipping the spreadsheet into shape.

"Just like old times," he tells me. He brushes my hair out of my face, and that's when Chelsea comes in. For a second she looks confused, and then annoyed, but then she asks if I'm feeling better and would I be up for a trip to Harrod's tomorrow and everything seems fine.

The next day I feel practically perfect. My appetite returns and I drag Chelsea to one favorite restaurant for lunch and a second for dinner. Over the course of the next two weeks I fall into the rhythm of Max and Chelsea's life and end up canceling my plans for Spain and Ireland. I have all the escape and relaxation I was looking for right where I am.

It's completely out of the blue when, one night after Chelsea and I have left Max at home and gone to a concert together, she takes my hand and says "tell me about him."

"Who?" I play dumb. As well as Chelsea knows me, of course she's figured out that there was a man I didn't mention and that things ended badly between us. But I fought off the inquiries of my mother and brother, not to mention half of Salem. I can fight off Chelsea, too.

"This guy you're running away from. Is it Chad DiMera?"

"He's in some medical facility in Boston. I wouldn't have to leave Salem to run away from him."

"So you admit that there was someone. It just isn't Chad."

I'm inwardly annoyed with myself for falling into the trap. Some part of me does want to tell Chelsea everything. "There is a man," I admit, striking a balance between keeping my secret and telling my friend the truth. "There was a man. It was a bad idea and now it's over."

"I'm not going to ask who it is or if I know him because you wouldn't tell me and that's not what's important." I nod in appreciation and wait for Chelsea to ask the question she does think is important. "Did he hurt you?"

"I don't think he meant to."

"Sometimes that's the worst kind."

I want to ask Chelsea how she would know. She's always the one who changes her mind, with her heart jumping from Patrick to Max to Nick to Jett to Nick to Daniel and back to Max in those teenage years where I might have dated Josh, but always carried a torch for Max. But I don't ask, because she isn't wrong.

"He's older," I admit. "And he's taken."

Chelsea sucks in her breath. "Married?"

"Close enough. He loves her. They're planning a future."

"If he loved her so much, what was he doing with you?"

"You don't know how many times I asked myself that."

Somehow she manages to get even more serious. "Is it bad, Abigail?"

"Is what bad?"

"Are you just sad, or is this more of a… a soul wound?"

I shrug. "I hope I'm just sad." I really, really do.

"The way Max is going at you. Do you want me to tell him to stop?"

I'm completely taken aback. "Max isn't going at me."

Chelsea raises her eyebrows in disbelief. "He's been watching you from the minute you stepped into the airport. That first night when I came home and he had his hand in your hair, I thought he was about to kiss you. He probably would have if I'd been five minutes later."

Then I remember the flash of anger I'd seen that night. "Are you and Max maybe getting back together?" I ask. Stumbling into a relationship with Sami Brady's fiance is one thing. Being the other woman to my best friend is beyond intolerable. I can't believe I came so close without even knowing it.

"No." Chelsea shakes her head emphatically. "No, we are not, and this is not about me. If you just want some rebound sex with Max to clear your head, have at it. I have noise-cancelling headphones. I won't know a thing unless you want to compare notes."

"Chelsea." Something about her blunt phrasing makes me feel sixteen and innocent again, instead of like a harlot who attacks engaged men in the shower.

"I mean it. But if you're raw and vulnerable, don't go down this road with Max. You know how he is. You know he's never going to be in it for the long haul. Not with me, not with Stephanie, not with Mimi or Morgan or Justine or Andie or Olivia or-"

"I don't know who those last four people are."

"Exactly," says Chelsea. "Max is loyal to his friends, and he will always be your friend whether you do this little thing with him or not. Just like he's always been my friend after our break ups. But a romance won't last, and you had such a crush on him for such a long time."

"I'll keep it in mind," I say.

"If you've never had rebound sex, there's a lot to be said for it," Chelsea adds casually. "Especially with someone you already know and trust. A whole little quick rebound relationship, sometimes that's just the thing. But I know you, and I know that's not usually your style. So if your heart is broken, don't do anything that might make it worse, is all I'm saying. And if Max makes you uncomfortable and you don't want to stop it yourself, say the word and I will make it stop."

The next night Chelsea has a date and I find myself alone in the apartment with Max. Chelsea had been preparing for this exact situation, I realize belatedly, as Max and I slump together on the couch and make fun of a cheesy movie. Again, he begins to play with my hair. This time, knowing Chelsea won't be interrupting, I turn my face to his to invite him to get just a little bit closer if he wants.

He kisses me.

He kisses me and it's wonderful. It's a triumph for my inner sixteen-year-old. It soothes my secret worries that no man would ever find me attractive again because I was ruined by EJ. It's a kiss of friendship and kindness and warmth.

It isn't EJ's kiss.

It doesn't make me forget EJ's kiss.

But Chelsea has always known things I don't know. Chelsea could be right about a rebound I don't expect to last being the key to moving on. In economic theory, sometimes two distortions are better than one: the second distortion (say, a tax) mitigates the negative effects of the first distortion (say, a trade policy). It could be like that with romance, too. Doing one out of character thing (Max) could fix the first out of character thing I did (EJ).

So I kiss Max back. For a long time, that's all we do: kiss and kiss and kiss. Finally he pulls back. "I've wanted to do that since you got off the plane."

"Really?" I ask, blushing like this is news, which it would have been had Chelsea not laid things out for me.

"Really. You know, the other day we were talking about regrets. I don't regret giving up med school to go back to being a car guy. I don't regret trying med school, either. But I do regret… I do regret not trying harder with you back in Salem. I regret letting your family scare me off."

"My Aunt Maggie told you that I should be dating someone younger and you listened to her," I remember resentfully.

Ironically enough, I had run off to London then, too. Max's flat refusal to fight for me, his refusal to tell Maggie that our lives were our own, had annoyed me so much that I'd crossed an ocean to live with my parents and JJ. I'd missed them anyway, of course; it hadn't been all about Max. But I had enjoyed leaving town without bothering to say goodbye, oh yes I had.

"I should have fought for you. But it scared me, how perfect you were. So smart and capable. So sweet and decent. So beautiful. So young. Way too young."

People have always loved to tell me that I'm too young. "There's the same age difference between us now as there was then," I point out. "I haven't caught up to you."

"Come on, Abigail. You're the same age now as I was then. What if you had feelings for an eighteen year old boy? One of JJ's friends?"

I sit up straight, horrified by the mental image of myself on a date with JJ's friend Rory. "That's a good point," I tell Max weakly. I'm not ready to kiss him again, though, so it's just as well when the doorbell rings.

"I'll get rid of them," says Max, but as soon as he opens the door there's a scuffle and an indignant shout.

Just like that, EJ is towering over me.

"Abigail," he snaps imperiously, waving his phone in my direction. "Why did you block my number?"

_**TBC.**_


	6. Chapter 6

**Part 6**

The last thing in the world I'd wanted was for Max to know that I had had EJ's number to block. The minute Chelsea gets home, Max will tell her everything and Chelsea will figure out my mystery man's identity without even trying.

So while I'd rather look EJ in the face and tell him that I had been under the impression that it was no one's business but my own whose calls I take, instead I widen my eyes. "I block almost everyone's number when I travel in Europe with an American cell phone," I tell him innocently. "You can get charged for a call you don't answer, you know. You can even get charged if your phone is off. We don't all have the DiMera fortune to settle our obscene roaming charges, you know."

I can see the second it occurs to EJ that he revealed too much to Max just by showing up. He's willing to play along now. We might manage to wriggle our way out of this after all.

"I assume that this is about Will's wedding?" I ask. What else could EJ and I have in common but Will? "I know it's very important to Sami that everything go well."

EJ nods, calm now. "More important than anything. Obviously so important that she sent me over here with the jet to talk to you. She became… irrationally concerned that you would stay in England and not make it back in time for the ceremony. And obviously it would be a disaster if one of the best women was missing. But, let's not bore Maxwell with the details. Why don't we go for a walk and discuss this further?"

Max isn't quite buying it. "Will is my grand-nephew. I'd love to hear the details. Chelsea and I were thinking of flying back to Salem with Abigail for the wedding."

If Max and Chelsea had had thoughts of attending the wedding, they hadn't shared them with me. Max just doesn't want me to be alone with EJ; he figures that he's protecting me. I can't tell Max that I want to hear what EJ has to say without raising his suspicions further. I smile warmly at Max. "Okay, but feel free to leave when you get so bored you want to stick an oyster fork in your eye." This time I smile at EJ and am rewarded to see him swallow hard. "They're still serving oysters, right?"

"They are," EJ confirms. I know EJ doesn't need reminding that oysters are an infamous aphrodisiac.

"Not that the menu was really my job," I tell Max conversationally. "As many cooks and restaurant owners as there are in the family, catering was never going to be an issue. And Gabi was able to pick up my dress, right?"

"That's one of the concerns," EJ plays along. "Gabriela is convinced that your dress won't fit properly. She thinks that her measurements may have been used for both of the dresses, and if you aren't back in Salem in time to get alterations made…"

I roll my eyes. "I've borrowed Gabi's clothes before."

"A t-shirt is not the same as a formal gown, and obviously being a new mother has affected Gabriela's sizing. Abigail, you simply have to return. For the sanity of everyone involved."

We go over a few more potential problems: Uncle Lucas and Uncle Justin are apparently competing to be funniest in their toasts, and Sami has promised to be quiet only if Aunt Adrienne is quiet too. By the time Chelsea gets home not only is Max convinced that EJ only wanted to discuss the details of Will's wedding, I'm half convinced myself.

But I unblock EJ's number from my phone as soon as I'm alone in my bedroom, and when he texts me to meet him downstairs I'm prepared to make a run for it.

"You did very well covering up my indiscretion," EJ tells me begrudgingly as he leads me to a waiting limousine. He opens the door and lets me slide in first. It's enormous and beautiful and in an alternate universe where EJ and I are a possibility I would want to make love to him in it.

"Thank you."

"Of course, the whole song and dance wouldn't have been necessary had you merely refrained from blocking my number in the first place."

"Forgive me for thinking that you wouldn't need to contact your mistress once you'd returned to your fiancé. Where does Sami think you are, anyway?"

"Business," EJ says, and the lie is so predictable that I giggle. His dark eyes flicker with annoyance. "Well, I couldn't very well tell her that Nicholas has announced that he intends to reveal the photographs of you and me at William and Sonny's wedding, could I?"

"What does Nick want in return?"

"He wants Samantha to stop barging into William's home unannounced. It's upsetting to Gabriela."

"That's not exactly an unreasonable demand."

"That's the most bloody ridiculous part of this whole thing. It's not an unreasonable demand, and Samantha knows it's not an unreasonable demand, but she's not going to alter her behavior. I can get her to promise, but her word will mean nothing. She can't help herself."

I would dearly love to tell EJ that perhaps he should have chosen to marry a woman who understands the concept of self-restraint, or even one who acknowledges Gabi's right to live her own life. But I push that reaction aside, just as I push aside my desire to scream and wail and gnash my teeth at the thought of those photos getting out. This is not the time for an emotional reaction. This is the time to think.

"Nick knows there's no way for you to reign Sami in," I think aloud. "He knows he's asking for something you can't give. He doesn't want to give up his leverage that way, especially when he doesn't want to hurt me. He's bluffing."

"I cannot take that risk, Abigail. You may be right, but I cannot take that risk."

"So what do you intend to do?"

EJ is silent, and that tells me all I need to know.

"You want my blessing to murder my cousin?" I ask. "You'll never have it. You couldn't get it when you came to the Horton Cabin to shut my mouth, and you won't get it now."

"I am doing you the courtesy of letting you know where things stand. I am doing you the courtesy of coming here with an open mind to see if you can offer an alternative to spare the life of this extortionist you claim to love so much."

"I can't tell you how flattered I am by your courtesy." I say it with sarcasm, but in a way I really am flattered. He's taking an enormous risk and putting his trust in me. He's showing me that he doesn't really want to end this with murder. He's asking me to find a way out.

And on the soul of my great-grandmother Alice Horton, I will. I'll follow my heart.

EJ is watching me carefully, silently as I think.

"Chelsea and Max and I will fly back to Salem with you as soon as the jet's ready," I decide. My plan is a long shot, and I need all the backup I can get. Chelsea and Max can provide that.

"Why on earth do you need—you know what, never mind. Bring all the mechanics and trashy socialites you'd like. But get it done in three days or we revert to my plan."

I don't even bother to ask why he would characterize Chelsea as trashy or a socialite. That's one more thing that can't be important right now. "Three days is all I need."

***

The flight back to Salem on the DiMera jet is nothing short of decadent. The Horton family is well off, but the truly rich live differently.

I spend much of the flight with my head on Max's shoulder while his arm wraps around my waist. I see EJ watching us with an inscrutable look on his face.

I remind myself not to care whether EJ is a tiny bit jealous or not. It doesn't matter. Anything that goes on between Max and me has to be about Max and me.

Eventually EJ goes to sit with the pilot and Chelsea snaps to attention.

"What's this really about?" she demands. "And don't tell me a wedding emergency."

"It kind of is," I tell her softly. "But only indirectly. The real emergency is Nick."

"Nick?" asks Chelsea like she's never heard the name before. I glare at her. "Nick Fallon? _My _Nick?"

"That's the one."

"Did something happen to him?" asks Max. The question is so innocent that I wonder whether Max and Chelsea really have no idea. It's better that they don't. They'll be able to look at Nick and see who he is supposed to be without being blinded by what he is now.

"What's the last thing you heard about Nick?"

Chelsea shrugs. "Nothing you didn't tell me. Didn't he marry your friend Gabi?"

"It didn't last. It wasn't ever the most stable situation. Look, did Nick ever strike you as someone who was going to do well in prison?"

Sheer horror crosses Chelsea's face and Max reflexively tightens his hand on my hip.

"How bad was it, Abs?" Chelsea is leaning forward now, a tight ball of energy, just like I need her to be. This is all to give Nick his best chance, but I still feel like I'm betraying him. I know beyond all doubt that he doesn't want Chelsea and Max to hear this.

"When Julie went to visit him in prison, he had bruises on his face. He said it was nothing, a one time thing, no big deal. But Julie knew better. She went on a crusade to get him out. Thank God. When he came home, it was obvious that he'd… changed."

"Of course he had," says Max.

"He hated Will. Just hated him. Started quoting scripture and saying homosexuality is wrong."

"That really doesn't sound like Nick," says Chelsea defensively, like I'm somehow viciously attacking the ex-boyfriend she hasn't seen in years. "Nick's a scientist. He believes science explains almost everything, including sexual orientation."

"Anyway, that was one of the reasons he pushed to marry Gabi while she was pregnant with Will's baby. If he was Gabi's husband, he'd be the presumptive legal father. He said gay men shouldn't be raising children."

"That's gross," says Max. I like feeling his voice rumble against me. It's a kind of casual intimacy I didn't get to share much with EJ.

"Yes, it is," I agree. "But Will was like Will is, and he risked his life saving Nick the day Ari was born. Nick took it back. He told the hospital that Ari is Will's daughter, no problem. He told Will he was sorry. And he said why he had a problem with men having sex with other men after he got out of prison."

Chelsea's face crumbles. "No."

"Over and over. Every day," I confirm, glad that Chelsea doesn't make me say the word. "He said he knew that that was about power, and not sex or love. He told Gabi that he'd been so busy lying about what he felt that that made their whole relationship a lie, too, and he divorced her."

"Poor Gabi," says Max.

"She loved him," I tell them. "She would have stayed with him and put him back together. But he was off the rails. And when he came around to realizing that he wanted her for real, he was convinced that he had to get her away from—not even Will so much, but Sami and Kate and… Well, they didn't appreciate that. Gabi didn't either. He told Gabi that he could make her understand that they belonged together. He was out of his mind. He attacked her. Gabi was scared. She had every right to be scared, and let's say Sami and Kate took some steps to keep Nick away."

"_Steps_?" Max wants to know.

"Don't ask."

"You've met Granny Kate," says Chelsea, like that's explanation enough, which it should be.

"Long story short, Nick is blackmailing half the town and if I can't stop him in a nice way, someone else will stop him in a not-so-nice way. Are you in?"

They both grab my hands.

I knew I could count on them.

***

When we land in Salem, I ask Chelsea and Max to try to keep Nick from knowing that they're here. It's an easy request for them to grant. Chelsea rushes off to see her sister Ciara, and Max hurries to visit his mother at the Pub just as quickly.

"Abigail." EJ steps in front of me to stop me from chasing after them. "Care to let me in on this plan of yours?"

"I'm on a deadline, EJ. One you imposed."

I expect him to object and demand to know the details. I at least expect him to scold me for telling too much to Max and Chelsea. But he doesn't. He steps aside and lets me go.

Without stopping at home to change or shower (or have to face my mom and JJ), I rush over to the apartment that Will, Sonny, and Gabi share. I have to talk to all of them, but I'm relieved when Gabi says she and the baby are alone. It's Gabi's voice that will be most important in this.

Gabi is an easy sell. She bursts into tears and does everything but fall to her knees in gratitude.

"Yes, yes, yes," she tells me. "Thank you, Abigail. Thank you so much."

"You think it's a good idea?" I ask unnecessarily. She might be too close to Nick to see things clearly, but she also knows Nick very well.

"I at least want him to know that people love him," she says.

It's a nice attitude.

I hope that's what Nick takes away from this.

_**TBC.**_


	7. Chapter 7

**Part 7**

I start out by asking Nick to meet me for lunch at the Pub. Then Gabi asks Nick if she can meet him after lunch to study in the park, so we have his whole afternoon blocked out.

He looks so pleased to see me- and is probably even more pleased at the prospect of an afternoon with Gabi- that I'm tempted to abort the whole plan. It takes all of my willpower to remember that Nick does not act toward the rest of the world the way he acts toward Gabi and me. The choice to do something about Nick isn't mine any longer. EJ forced my hand because Nick forced his hand.

We spread out, just as planned, the two of us in a booth meant for six. Our lunchtime conversation is ordinary enough. Nick asks about my trip and I tell him that I decided to stay in London. He asks about Chelsea and Max and what I did and saw. I ask what he's been up to, and of course he tells me that he hasn't been doing anything but working and visiting Gabi when she's willing to see him.

As paranoid as Nick is, it's lucky that he doesn't notice that the Pub is systematically emptying out and that a "closed for family event" sign appears on the door.

When we've finished eating, right on cue, Max and Chelsea jump over the back of the booth to join us: Max beside me, Chelsea beside Nick. For a fraction of a second it's just the way I imagined our lives would be when I was a teenager: the four of us paired off and friends forever.

Max drapes his arm around me protectively, but now isn't the time for me to revel in it. What's more important is the sheer fear on Nick's face. We'd choreographed Chelsea and Max jumping over the back of the booth so that Nick would eventually end up sandwiched between Chelsea and Gabi. (Gabi is still breastfeeding and not much for jumping over things, so we had to leave the edge of the booth open for her.) It hadn't occurred to us that you just don't sneak up on someone who is suffering from personality-altering PTSD after being raped in prison.

Nick is staring fixedly at the table in front of him and I don't think he's even breathing.

I'm not sure Chelsea is breathing, either. Obviously she and Max were watching Nick and me from behind the bar, but this is her first time seeing Nick up close since the day he went to prison.

"Nick?" she whispers. Hesitantly, she puts one hand on the back of his neck. When he doesn't move, she uses her other hand to take his pulse, which makes him smile the tiniest bit.

"You stayed with the therapy program?" he asks weakly. "You're Dr. Chelsea now?"

She doesn't answer the question. "I'm sorry, we shouldn't have snuck up on you. We thought it would be funny. Nick, your heart, it's still pounding." She looks at me and I can see her pleading with me to call this whole thing off. I shake my head the tiniest bit. We have to hurt him a little now to keep him from hurting a lot later.

"I'm fine." Nick shrugs away from Chelsea's touch. "Just surprised. You know I was always the loser of this little group, right? Can't take a joke, that's me."

The intonation sends a chill down my spine. It looks like Max and Chelsea are about to have their first encounter with Bad Nick. Under the table, I frantically text Gabi to get in here posthaste.

"Max and Chelsea came back from London with me," I tell Nick brightly. "For Will and Sonny's wedding."

"Of course," says Nick.

"And to see everyone else, too," says Chelsea. "When Abigail showed up in London it made me realize how much I missed everyone. My grandma, and Hope and Ciara, and… you."

Nick flicks a dubious glance at her from under half-closed eyelids.

I text Gabi again just as she bursts through the front door out of breath and with her coat misbuttoned. "Nick!" she exclaims. "I thought I was late. But I see you have lots of company."

She does a decent job of appearing to wonder who Max and Chelsea are. I suspect that she took an acting lesson or two during her modeling career.

Nick moves to slide out of the booth. "Well, it's been nice seeing the two of you, but Gabi and I have plans-"

"Noooo!" Gabi whines. She plops into the booth, hard, shoving Nick against Chelsea. "I want to meet your friends. Abigail, introduce us, since Nick isn't going to."

I smile. Again, for a second, this feels like something that should be real. It is real, in its way. I love all of these people, and all of them love me. And all of us want the best for Nick. "Gabi, this is Chelsea Benson, Bo Brady's daughter. She was my best friend in high school. Chelsea, this is Gabi Hernandez. She is one of my very best friends now."

The shake hands across Nick's chest. Nick looks a little weirded out, but not like he's going to run out of the building.

"And I'm Max Brady," Max adds. He shakes Gabi's hand, too, and holds onto it a second too long. "Abigail told me you were a model, but I still wasn't prepared for how pretty you were."

"Max is a world-renowned flirt," Chelsea tells Gabi.

"There's nothing wrong with that," says Max. He runs his fingers through my hair. "Abigail doesn't complain when I flirt with her."

"She's just had so much practice over the years that she thinks it's normal," says Chelsea.

"Tell me about that," says Gabi eagerly. "Tell me about all those fun times you had back then before I knew Nick and Abigail."

"They weren't that fun," Nick tells Gabi.

"Nick kind of got stuck pulling our irons out of the fire," Chelsea says. "We'd get into trouble and he'd get us out of it. There was this time my brother Shawn's psycho ex-girlfriend Willow burned down our father's house. She stole my hairbrush and left it there to frame me. So I begged Nick to steal it from the lab before they could prove that the hair was mine and…" Chelsea sniffles. "The statute of limitations is up on this, okay? But even though he knew it could cost him his job, could compromise his morals, could open him up to being blackmailed, he did it for me. Because that's who Nick is."

"A pushover," says Nick.

"A protector," corrects Chelsea.

"There was this creep at the hospital," I break in, figuring that we should paint Nick as a hero in a less ambiguous way. "Dr. Rebert." Chelsea shudders at the name. "He would have raped Chelsea if Nick hadn't been there."

"Yeah, Nick was a hero." Max rolls his eyes. "But there was one time we were all in Vegas and somehow he ended up married with two little kids calling him Daddy. Artemis and DeMarquette. You should have seen how scared Nick was." Max looks at Gabi conspiratorially. "Scared of these two sweet little kids. I said I could handle kids and I would help him, and he hugged me so hard I didn't think I'd be able to get him off me. See, the story the woman- China Lee- gave us was that Artemis and DeMarquette would end up in foster care while she went to jail for 30 days if Nick didn't take care of them. But it turned out, I kid you not, that those boys were some kind of princes in their own country. The kidnapper kept coming after them."

"And Nick saved them," chimes in Chelsea. "See? Nick always turns out to be the hero."

Max makes a face like he's lost his argument. "I did look them up on Facebook the other day when I was thinking about them," he admits. "They're in high school now, and they wrote a note. They wanted me to give it to you when they found out I was going to see you."

Max removes a folded paper from his pocket, and I'm beyond impressed. All I'd done was ask them to be ready with a story that showed how much they admired Nick and how much he meant to the people around him. I hadn't expected Max to go so far. I hadn't been in Salem during the Artemis and DeMarquette fiasco, anyway, so I would never have thought of this.

I'm flooded with love and admiration for Max as he begins to read.

_Dear Nick,_

We were very happy when Max contacted us and told us that he was going to see you and deliver a message from us. Please don't think that because we haven't seen you means that we don't think of you. We think of you often, and with gratitude. You stepped into our lives when we had no one. Very few people would have shown us the love and kindness that you did.

We hope to see you one day. If you ever wish to visit our country, you are most welcome. We will be sending you a formal invitation to Artemis' elevation when he attains the age of majority the year after next. Please mark your calendar.

With love and respect,

Artemis  
DeMarquette

"Want to see their picture?" Max asks. He pulls out a posed, formal portrait of two boys, a few years younger than JJ but radiating wisdom and maturity.

"I'm glad they're doing well," says Nick.

"Since I helped you out, I get to come with you to the elevation ceremony. Whatever that is," says Max.

"Sure."

Nick is almost relaxed, and I text Will and Sonny to come in. I'm impressed that Sonny has waited so long without crashing the party, as mistrustful as he is of Nick and my whole plan.

I don't entirely want Sonny here, but better him than Kate or EJ or, God forbid, Sami. Someone who doesn't love Nick and can't be swayed by him needs to be here. Besides, I couldn't very well ask Will to exclude Sonny. After all, it is Sonny's wedding that Nick threatened to destroy.

"Hi, Gabi," says Will casually as he sits next to me. Sonny grabs a chair and pulls it up to the edge of the table, facing down the six of us. "You're picking Ari up this evening and you forgot the extra diaper bag." He hands it over. "Good thing you were still here."

"We were telling our favorite Nick stories," Gabi informs him.

Will cocks his head as if in thought. "You know, my favorite Nick story isn't much of a story. It was the day of my parents' wedding."

"Which one?" taunts Chelsea.  
_  
"The last one," _says Will with exasperation.

"So is this one of the times they were marrying each other?"

"You were the maid of honor. I guess Mom had alienated everyone else in her life so you had to do it."

"Actually, her sister Belle was on the run. Abigail and Nick and I helped her sneak across the border into Canada. See, another hero Nick story."

"Whatever," says Will. "Anyway, the photographer bailed at the last minute but I had the coolest new camera to take the pictures myself. It had all the bells and whistles and attachments and nobody but Nick appreciated how awesome it was."

Nick doesn't answer. He doesn't respond at all. His face has gone blank.

"Nick?" Gabi and Chelsea ask simultaneously.

Will and I exchange a glance to share how surreal it is to see them together.

"What is this?" Nick asks, and he's asking me, not the concerned current love of his life or the concerned former love of his life.

"This is a group of old friends and new friends and family sharing stories."

"Funny you should say old and new. Will didn't look surprised to see Max and Chelsea. He just went right into bantering with his cousin, right? As far as I know Sonny has never met either of them. But he didn't react either. At least Gabi pretended to need to be introduced. And you made a point of putting me between Gabi and Chelsea because I'm not that likely to shove either of them out of the way. So, tell me, Abigail." He leans across the table, his eyes locked on mine. "What is this?"

I hold his gaze, and it's one of the hardest things I've ever done. My ears are ringing and I can't feel Max and Will close beside me hip to hip. "It's an intervention."

He laughs. "An intervention? What, you think I'm a drug addict?"

"No. Just a blackmail addict."

"How could I be blackmailing anyone?" he asks. "I would have to know things, right? Someone would have to have done something they didn't want the world to know about."

"Most of us do something like that at some point in our lives."

"You've _been_ blackmailed, Nick," says Chelsea.

"Yeah, by your grandmother. And I didn't see anyone holding an intervention to tell her that she should stop."

"Grandma Kate is kind of beyond help," Will pipes up, and Chelsea giggles.

"Do you really want to live Granny Kate's life?" asks Chelsea. "She has no real friends and all of her children have had to run away to the other side of the planet to keep her from screwing up their lives."

"Except my dad, but he has co-dependency issues," says Will. "Plus, his own kids are in Salem so he doesn't really have a choice."

"And what's her legacy going to be? She made a lot of money in business? Since when do you want that?" continues Chelsea.

"Plus, sometimes she has to get in bed with Stefano. Literally," concludes Will with a shudder.

"There are worse things than getting in bed with DiMeras. Don't you think, Abigail?"

I take the risk of ignoring his warning one more time. "Being Kate's grandchild is a thing, isn't it?" I ask Chelsea and Will instead. "Do you guys have support group meetings?"

"You should hear our parents get together and talk about having her as a mother," says Chelsea with hushed reverence. "Uncle Lucas and my mom have this argument about whether it was worse to be abandoned by her or raised by her. Granny Kate always cries, but she's always pissed them off so bad that they don't even care."

"It's not any weirder than when you and I get together and talk about being Horton," says Will. He smiles kindly at me, but I know the kindness is really directed at Nick. Not for the first time, I think that Will is amazing. Bad Nick has done more to him than to anyone else, but Will is here throwing his whole heart into saving whatever vestiges of Good Nick remain. "The Hortons are sort of too upper crust to admit that there's pressure. We're so perfect that we would never tell our children to be perfect because then we wouldn't be perfect, and don't criticize us, we never said we were perfect."

"You're supposed to fall in love with the right person, right away and sometimes it feels like you can't so there's something wrong with you."

"You're supposed to be kind and nice and decent and sometimes it feels like that's not going to get you anywhere."

"You're not supposed to end up in prison, even though that's totally where Grandpa Bill met Julie's Doug for the first time."

"Has anyone ever told you what Grandpa Bill was doing there?"

"No! And at this point you'd think they'd tell me if I asked nicely."

Nick smirks unpleasantly at us, not at all amused. "It was for killing his sister in law," he announces. "Uncle Tommy's wife, Sandy's mother. She was blackmailing him because she knew that he was your Uncle Mike's father, not Uncle Mickey."

Will and I stare at each other and simultaneously decide that that fits with the pieces we knew.

"In my branch of the Horton family, we tell each other things," Nick announces. "We're good at telling secrets."

He's starting to wear me down and I'm about to say that in that case he ought to tell his own parents what he's been through in the last few years. But I know why he doesn't. Jessica, his mother, is fragile (multiple personalities because her real personality is so shy she can barely speak). Marie, his grandmother, is fragile, too (mental breakdown when she accidentally fell in love with her amnesiac brother, as one does). Nick is in Salem because it's the rest of the family that might be strong enough to fix his hot mess.

And with that, I get another rush of strength.

I'm choosing one more shot at reaching Nick over my own good name.

What is my family going to do if they find out about me and EJ, anyway? Scream and roll their eyes? At least no one will die, and if they weren't already aware that I can make mistakes, they'll just have to learn.

"Go ahead, Nick." My hands are flat on the table; so are his. We've reached the end of the poker game and I'm going to call his bluff. "Between us, Gabi and I know everything that you're using." I'm not sure that that's true, but I think it probably is. "We're both okay with you screaming it from the rooftops. We'll just tell everyone ourselves if that's what it takes to get you off this collision course."

I catch Gabi's eye and she nods. I'm doing the talking, but she's all in, too.

I inch one hand closer to Nick's so I can touch it, just barely. "Our love is stronger than your hate."

"I'm sure everyone's listening, Abigail," says Nick. He's right, too. You could cut the tension with a dull butter knife, you could hear a pin drop, and every other cliche in the book.

"I was involved with a man I shouldn't have been involved with. An older man. A man who was taken." I'd gone this far with both Chelsea and Will. It gets easier every time. "He's pretty well known. His fiancee will be furious when she finds out, and so will her family. The affair is over, but Nick has pictures. He threatened to distribute them at Will and Sonny's wedding."

Will and Sonny both scowl. I hadn't prepared to go this far, so I hadn't told them what to expect. I'm scared again. I don't want Will mad at me over what I've done to his mother. I don't want Sonny to be furious because I've hurt Will. I don't want Max to be disgusted by me, not that he has room to judge after the laundry list of women Chelsea told me about.

"The reason that would ruin the wedding, the reason that gave him power, was-"

"You know what, stop," says Nick. "If this is all about the wedding, that was a bluff. I told you I wouldn't use those pictures, Abigail."

"That's not enough. You need to leave town before someone decides to shut you up permanently. You need to go to therapy. You need to-"

"No."

"Why not?"

"My family is here."

"Julie and Doug have a place in London. They just got back from their cruise, and they will take you there with them. You could be with family."

"The hospital where I work, I can get you into treatment there. You could deal with what happened to you," says Chelsea. "And there's a lab where you could get a job. We could get together for lunch every day, you and me and Max."

"That's so sweet that you planned out my new imprisonment for me," says Nick, his voice laden with sarcasm. "I remember that you said you would visit me when I went to prison the first time, too."

"My mother was in an accident and I had to get to London. I never wanted to abandon you. I never thought… I thought you'd get help, not…"

"Not what? You can't even say it? I'm disappointed, Chelsea, you never used to be at a loss for words. Lucky me that I moved on in life and met Gabi."

It's a bit ironic, as quiet as Gabi has been all day.

"You don't want me to go to prison, do you, Gabi?" Nick prompts.

"It's not going to be prison," mutters Chelsea irritably. She's gone from horrified to aggravated, not because Nick is treating all of us like garbage but because he's looking at Gabi like he used to look at Chelsea.

"I love you," says Gabi, and her voice is shaking and everyone in the room knows that she means it. A part of me wishes I'd followed through and called EJ by name. Our relationship never could have succeeded, but my feelings are real and they should see the light of day. "Everyone at this table loves you, except maybe Sonny, and he's never met the real you so that's different," Gabi rambles. "I mean, they'd all have to love you to listen to the rotten things you've been saying and still be sitting here. But I love you more than I love everyone else in the world except one person."

"Ari," says Nick. "But I-"

"It doesn't matter if you love her too. You tried to cut her father out of her life over and over again, and that isn't good for her. You made it so I have to choose between you and her. And so I choose her. And because I want the best for you, I have to send you thousands of miles away with your gorgeous, sophisticated ex-girlfriend."

I steal a glance at Chelsea. She's not so irritated anymore. I'm amused that the woman EJ saw as a trashy socialite, Gabi sees as gorgeous and sophisticated. Gabi, the one everyone accuses of being just a little dim, is closer to the truth.

"All those stories they were telling about you?" Gabi asks. "They were about you taking care of people. That's why they want to take care of you now. You know, I was glad when I didn't get my turn when we were telling stories about you. I have too many stories to tell, and too many of them would make me cry." She's crying anyway, of course, but her voice is clear and she's hitting Nick where he lives with every word. "I think I would have talked about the first time we really talked. I said I'd heard that you were a genius mad scientist. You said that one of those things was true."

"And you guessed _mad_."

"And you said _scientist_. Is that who you are now?"

"I'm making a lot of money for Kate's company. I shouldn't have had to blackmail her into giving me that job anyway."

"I don't think you answered my question. The day I gave birth to Ari, you told me that you didn't love me-"

"I was wong-"

"You said that you didn't know who you were so you couldn't love. Do you know who you are now, Nick? Because if you can tell me, I'll walk away from this little intervention and let you destroy what's left of yourself. But if you can't, I'm going to beg you to get on that plane…"

I'd asked EJ those same questions. They repeat and repeat in my head and I can barely hear what Gabi's saying. I hear my own voice instead.

_"I'm just trying to figure out one thing, EJ. Between all of the lies and the manipulation and the walls that you put up around yourself, do you even know who the real EJ is? Because I don't."_

And suddenly I'm so dizzy that I need to put my head down at the climax of my own brilliant plan.

I don't pass out all the way. I'm aware of Will sliding away so I can get more air and Max whispering that he's got me. I'm even aware that Gabi has switched over to Spanish. I don't know how much of the language Nick knows, but he doesn't need to know the language to catch her meaning.  
_  
Mi amor. Mi corazon. Ayúdame. Ayúdese._

When I'm back to myself, Nick is crying, too, and he hasn't even noticed that I almost checked out of my own party. He doesn't seem to notice that it's Will, not me, who has him signing documents resigning his job.

But by the time we all escort him home to pack so he can get on the next flight to London with Doug and Julie, I almost feel normal again.

At the airport, I see EJ watching us from the shadows.

Just as soon as Nick's flight takes off, EJ joins us.

_**TBC**_


	8. Chapter 8

**Part 8**

EJ essentially acknowledges that he was lurking and watching us rather than making up a story about how he just happened to be at the airport for such-and-such. "It's done, then," he says to Will and Sonny, who are standing in front of the window with their arms wrapped around each other and debating eventual honeymoon locations. As close as they are to their wedding, who can blame them for casting off the afternoon's torrent of emotions so quickly?

Sonny nods, all business, and shakes EJ's hand while Will comes up with the signed papers that sever Nick's professional ties to EJ. But then Gabi says she needs to hold Ari, and Will and Sonny want to go with her. Chelsea and Max have lists of things to do and people to see a mile long.

When I'm left alone with EJ, it's more natural than contrived.

I think I would have preferred contrived. I don't want to feel that EJ is somehow what the universe wants for me.

"It's not private enough around here," he says delicately. "Join me in my car?"

Another nefarious planning session in his car. I remind myself that this is better than clandestine meetings at the Horton Cabin or in the shower at the gym. I don't quite believe myself.

"All right," I agree. I'm exhausted and starting to get dizzy again, so I don't object at all when EJ takes me by the arm and settles me into the backseat before climbing in himself and telling his driver to take the scenic route back to downtown Salem.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath while I'm waiting for him to start.

But he doesn't start.

I open my eyes again and he's watching me as if he's never seen me before, blinking rapidly while he searches for words.

It frightens me. EJ might be lying to himself about his oh-so-perfect life with Sami, but he's otherwise one of the most self-assured people I've ever met. He's already advised me that our affair was just a top secret hiccup on his path to eternal bliss with his fiancee. If he could say that to me, what wouldn't he be able to say?

"Oh God," I breathe, suddenly alight with panic. "You paid someone to rig the plane to explode and Nick and Doug and Julie are all going to die, aren't they?"

My tired mind snaps back into action. I'll call Hope first because she has the best chance of knowing someone with airport security who can ask the plane to turn around-

"Abigail, for heaven's sake, of course not," says EJ. Now he's looking at me like I'm just a bit ridiculous, which is totally fair and also more comfortable than the way he was looking at me before. "Is that what you think of me?"

"Three days ago you told me that you were planning to take a hit out on my cousin."

"Technically, that's not what I said," EJ replies. And of course he's correct. He never said. He implied. He let his silence do the communicating. He led me to a conclusion and let me go from there.

I sigh.

"If I had been planning something of that nature, I never would have told you. For one thing, it would have made you an accessory."

"Did Sami know?" I ask. It's the stupidest thing I could possibly have said, but sometimes that's how things go when you're chatting with your ex-liaison who just forced you to get your cousin out of the country on pain of death.

"Samantha and I are to be married. We share important things with one another."

"The family that slays together, stays together," I agree. "You must feel so wonderful about yourself."

_"No, Abigail, I bloody well don't!"_

I jump, not because I'm frightened of EJ but because I'm startled by his abruptness. He doesn't seem to notice.

"At least this should get the idea of you and me out of your mind forever," EJ continues. Now he's looking through the car's tinted windows at the highway outside instead of at me. "The photographs are gone and whatever romantic notions were dancing around your beautiful head are gone, too. They're certainly gone from mine."

"So you've mentioned," I tell him icily. "Look, I went to London to get away from you. You followed me there. And you followed us to the airport. And you asked me to get in this car with you. I get why you did all those things, but you're still the one following me and not the other way around. So if you're trying to paint me as some kind of crazy stalker who's boiling bunnies and not taking no for an answer the last time you told me that we have no future-"

"That's not what I meant, Abigail."

"By all means, enlighten me. What did you mean?"

"I meant that even if I were free, you are far too good for me."

I open my mouth to protest. As far as condescending brush-offs go, _"you're too good for me" _takes second place only to _"you're too young for me."_ I've heard them both too many times.

EJ puts one finger on my lips to stop me from speaking. "What you did today amazes me," he continues. "I truly didn't think it was possible. I didn't think there was any way out of this without bloodshed. But you found a way. Your intelligence and your tenacity and your compassion are beyond compare, Abigail. Beyond compare. I, on the other hand, am a dangerous and damaged man who resorts to violence without exhausting the other alternatives first. If you and I were ever to try to make a life together, I would destroy you, Abigail."

I hate the underlying condescension in his words. But I hate hearing him tear himself down more. "If I'm so intelligent and tenacious, you wouldn't be able to destroy me," I chirp with false levity.

"You were obviously able to reach your cousin. But, Abigail, there is not enough brightness in this world to illuminate the darkness of the DiMera family."

"That's not how the quote goes. It's _'All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.' _My great-grandmother liked to say it. It's Saint Francis of-"

"Saint Francis Assisi. He never met the DiMeras."

"Are you sure? The DiMeras didn't have any holdings in Assisi in the thirteenth century?"

He ignores me. "What I wanted to do was thank you for saving me from myself this one time. For saving me from causing yet more bloodshed and suffering. Nicholas Fallon had to be dealt with, but he is still William's family and by extension he is Samantha's family. So thank you, Abigail. I hope I won't have to take advantage of your kindness again."

"Why? What have you got against kindness? That's against the DiMera code, too?"

"I merely don't want to continue to disrupt your life. You were correct when you said that I've been interrupting you at every turn when you deserve to move on from the mess that we made. I, more than you."

"I'm an adult," I remind him for at least the thousandth time.

"A very young adult who needs to be allowed space to explore and grow without being chained to one mistake. Not that I necessarily agree that you should be exploring and growing with Maxwell Brady, but-"

"Max and I are just friends."

EJ raises an eyebrow sardonically. "Does he know that? Because it seems to me that he's about ready to brand 'property of MB' across your forehead."

"He's just being protective. He's like that with all of his friends."

"He seems to be able to keep his hands off of Chelsea, and the two of them dated for quite a long time, didn't they?"

"Yes," I admit.

"If he makes you happy, then of course you have my blessing. Not that you need it."

"Why shouldn't Max make me happy?" I challenge. "He's loyal and he's funny and he's good with children."

"I have a hard time imagining the two of you discussing the nuances of your father's novel or Raphael's work, is all. Maxwell had an opportunity to study medicine at one of the finest schools in the world and decided that he would rather be a mechanic instead."

Says the person who wants to marry Sami Brady.

"Max knows who he is and what he wants. That's one of the things I like best about him." It's something that seems to be in short supply among the men in my life, family and otherwise.

"Very well."

"Yes, it is _very well_." I wonder where Max will be sleeping tonight. Probably at his mother's. I may _very well_ join him. This time tomorrow, I will have finally made love to a man who is not a DiMera, and EJ can _very well _mind his own business. "You don't think I belong with you and you don't think I belong with Max. Where do I belong, EJ?"

"You belong at home, getting a good night's rest. I heard William mention that you fainted this afternoon?"

"Not exactly. I'm just tired."

"Don't overdo it these next few days with the wedding preparations. William and Sonny love each other. That's all that's necessary to make the ceremony a success. But I'm sure they'd prefer that their best woman not collapse at the altar from sheer exhaustion."

Then EJ lowers the partition to ask the driver to stop circling and bring me home. In no time at all, we're there. EJ jumps out of the car to open my door and hand me out rather than letting the chauffeur do it. When I'm holding his hand, I can't resist.

"Those things you said, EJ, about you being a bad man who doesn't look for alternatives to violence? They aren't true. That's why you came to London to find me. You knew I was the alternative. And you made the right choice. Thank you. For all of my family, for Nick, thank you. But mostly, thank you from me."

He doesn't respond. He just lets me go after giving my hand the tiniest squeeze.

***

That night, I don't sleep with EJ or with Max. Instead, Chelsea crawls into my bed like she hasn't done since we were sixteen years old and her adoptive parents died. I'm so fuzzy with the need for sleep that it takes me long moments to realize that she's crying. I reach over to hug her and we lie close together until her breathing is normal.

"Do you think it's my fault? Do you blame me?" she asks at last.

"Blame you for what?" For coming over here and keeping me from running after Max? There's time enough for that in the future, so no, I'm not upset. Tonight probably wasn't the best choice for our first time anyway, not when I'm spinning so hard off of my conversation with EJ.

"For Nick," says Chelsea like it should have been obvious, and maybe it should have been.

"There's nobody to blame for Nick but Nick. And that monster who attacked him in prison and the other monsters who let it happen. You weren't even here when Nick started acting crazy, Chelsea."

"Exactly. Doesn't it occur to you that I should have been here? Nick was right. I said I would visit him in prison and I didn't follow through."

"You had to go to London to take care of your mom. You didn't have any choice."

"I could have come to visit when he got out."

"What could you have done that the rest of us didn't do?"

She doesn't answer, since there is no answer. "It was awful seeing him that way, not even knowing who he is. That was always one of the best things about Nick, you know? Even way back when we first met him when he was wearing those dorky clothes. When he was talking about how he mapped the Horton genome and how he learned to get an olive into a brandy snifter without touching it in his nerd frat."

I laugh. "He saved your ass with that."

"Yeah, he did. And I treated him like crap and told him to lose the glasses. But that didn't phase him. He knew that he wasn't the most, you know, classically handsome guy. But he knew that he was good and smart and sweet and that that was enough. He didn't apologize for what he was. He flew that nerd flag, that good guy flag. That was what made him sexy. That was what made him Nick. Now he's broken, and maybe if way back before he went to jail I had been paying attention to him instead of panting after Dr. Dan-"

"That wasn't your job."

"I should have told that little shit Melanie to shut up instead of letting Nick go to jail all nobly for her. I should have ripped her red hair out by its dyed roots."

"Chelsea."

"What? You can't tell me that you believe that that's her natural hair color."

I giggle again. "She's not so bad. Not anymore. She was good to me, really, back when I had that stupid crush on Austin."

Chelsea sighs. "So speaking of your crushes on older men."

"Let's not."

"EJ DiMera. Of all people. Is it still going on, Abigail? I saw you get into his car when we left the airport."

"I never said it was EJ."

"You pretty much did," says Chelsea bluntly. "Nick let you say everything but the name. If Nick passed around pictures of the best woman having a tryst with some random guy, that would be annoying, but it wouldn't ruin the wedding. But if he passed around pictures of the best woman with the groom's stepfather? Yeah, that's a problem. That's why EJ would fly to London to get you involved with this. Those pictures were of both of you."

"Does everyone know?" I squeak shakily.

In the dim light, I can make out Chelsea's expression. She really doesn't want to tell me this. "Well, Gabi was probably too upset. And Max's brain doesn't usually work along those lines. But Sonny, definitely."

"And Will?"

"He's not a moron."

"They haven't asked me to step down as best woman." I sigh. I'd been so honored to be asked, but even when Will had asked I'd been afraid that something like this would happen. "I guess they haven't had a chance yet. At least you're here to take my place. You're cousins with both of them, too."

"The wedding is not my major concern here. You getting involved with- with-"

"It's over."

"You deserve better."

"I don't want better," I say, and my voice takes on a plaintive whine. "I want him."

Because as stupid as it is, I still do.

And it's my turn to cry while Chelsea hugs me and swears that everything will be just fine.

I doubt it, but it's nice to hear.

_**TBC**_


	9. Chapter 9

**Part 9**

The day of Will and Sonny's wedding dawns mild and clear. The weather, at least, is going to be spectacular. It wouldn't dare be otherwise. This is Will and Sonny's special day, and everything should be perfect for the perfect couple.

Screw what EJ said about Sonny and Will's love being all that's needed to make the ceremony a success. EJ usually gets shot at his weddings, so what does he know? Show me someone who knows about successful weddings, and I'll show you someone who never tried to marry Sami Brady.

I've been so busy with errands and bachelor parties and makeup and gifts that I haven't had a minute alone with Will, but I guess if he wanted me out of the wedding party he would have made an effort to tell me by now. But just in case I have Chelsea wear a deep blue dress, almost purple, so she'll be able to step into the wedding party at the last minute without clashing.

Chelsea voices the opinion that this is ridiculous, but she likes the dress so she goes along with it.

As we're rushing out the door, JJ grabs my arm and says that we need to talk. I freeze. JJ never knew Nick very well, so he wasn't at the intervention. He didn't hear Nick threaten me, so he can't have guessed what I did. Someone must have told him. Will must have told him. Will delegated the honor of firing the best woman to her younger brother the groomsman.

I brace myself.

"Abigail, are you mad at me?"

I'm so shocked that it takes me a minute to register the question properly. "No," I manage at last. I shake my head to clear it. "No, not at all. I'm so proud of you for the way you've put your life back on the right track. You're- there's no one in the world who's more important to me than you are, JJ. Why would you think I was mad at you?"

"I just thought maybe you weren't around because you were avoiding me, or Mom, or both of us."

My heart sinks. Of course, I had been avoiding both my mother and my brother, but that was only because they knew me so well that I was sure they'd see the guilt of my affair with EJ written all over my face.

But now I remember Chelsea's reaction to the revelation: distaste, and concern, but nothing that made the world end. And Chelsea is sure that Will and Sonny know, and they've let me go ahead with my role in their wedding like nothing is wrong. Above all, there was the moment that I'd been ready to tell the world myself because getting help for Nick was more important.

I'd still rather that Mom and JJ never, ever find out what I've done. But I'm not so afraid that I'm willing to avoid them because some day they might avoid me.

"Just overwhelmed with everything going on." I spontaneously hug JJ and he hugs me back. "We'll have to do family time after the wedding."

He nods, convinced. JJ knows when I'm lying, so he knows that I'm not lying. "This is going to be the first wedding I've been a groomsman in," he tells me almost shyly. "And it's a gay wedding. Would you have thought that?" He flashes me a wide, charming smile that I have no doubt has triggered swooning in half of Salem High School.

"No," I agree. "It's great, isn't it?"

* * *

And the wedding is great.

Everyone plays his or her part to perfection, but the most moving moment by far belongs to Will's great-grandmother. For weeks, she'd gone back and forth on whether she wanted to speak. She suffers from memory lapses- I assume it's Alzheimer's, although no one has told me precisely- and she worried about whether she would be able to keep her wits about her long enough to tell her tale. At first, as she rambles about two men who used to come into the Pub, we're all concerned that she might be having one of her bad days.

But then the moral of her story becomes crystal clear. The two men were a couple. When one man's family came to visit, the other man had to pretend to be a mere acquaintance. The family missed out not only on knowing the man who made their son so happy, but on knowing their son himself. But as time marches on, fewer and fewer families lose their sons and daughters that way. And we haven't lost Will or Sonny, sent them into some kind of underground hiding because of the way they were born.

There's not a dry eye in the house.

I know that Sonny and Will have gotten the perfect day that they deserve.

By the middle of the reception, my best woman duties are done and I wander over to the table where Chelsea and Max have parked themselves with Jordan, Rafe, Sheryl, and Uncle Lucas. I've been watching them all day, when I get a chance, and it makes me happy to see how happy they are.

It's like Rafe and Uncle Lucas have formed a support group for men who have survived being married to Sami Brady. It's too bad that neither one of them likes EJ so he'll never be allowed to join even if he somehow shakes free of her clutches.

I remind myself that this is not the day to think of things like that.

Chelsea grabs my hand and entreats Jordan and Sheryl, "Oh, tell Abigail the story about the rental car, she has to hear it."

They launch into the story, and Chelsea is right, it's very funny- not so much because of the content, but because of the way Jordan and Sheryl share the telling. Friendship is a lovely thing. Jordan and Sheryl are lucky to have each other. Lucas and Rafe are lucky to have each other. And I'm lucky to have Chelsea and Max and Stephanie and Melanie and Gabi and Will and Sonny… There's so much love in the world, and not all of it is the romantic kind.

Will and Sonny come over hand in hand to say hello to Jordan and Sheryl, who apparently they hadn't greeted yet. Max comes up with the idea of making miniature toasts to the grooms, just private ones that can't set off family dramas about who has to be given equal time with whom.

I raise my glass when it's my turn. (I'm drinking water rather than champagne because I've been alternately sick and exhausted for weeks. I'm feeling good today and there's no need to tempt fate by throwing alcohol into the mix.)

"These last few weeks have been pretty intense for a lot of us for a lot of reasons," I say. Then, for a second, I lose my train of thought. EJ has come over with Sami in tow. He's staring hard at me. She doesn't notice because her attention is darting back and forth between Rafe's hand on Jordan's leg and Lucas' arm around Sheryl's shoulders.

EJ nods for me to continue, and while I want to shout at him that I don't need his permission, it's not the time or place. I just pick up my toast. But it doesn't go precisely where I'd intended it to go.

"And a few days ago I was thinking that it was funny how one idea keeps coming back out of all that intensity. I keep hearing the words_ 'do you know who you are?'_ Sometimes I'm the one saying them. Sometimes it's someone else. Either way, the conclusion I'm coming to is that it's rare and special to know who you are. That's before you even get to how hard it might be to show it. So I'm just in awe of Will and Sonny for, at this moment in their lives, not only being able to share themselves with all of us but _knowing _to begin with. To Sonny and Will."

"To Sonny and Will," everyone parrots. Everyone but EJ. He moves his lips, but he doesn't speak. And he raises his glass not to the group but to me. His eyes might as well be burning a hole through my dress. (It's not like anyone ever wears a bridesmaid's dress, or a best woman's dress, more than once anyway, right?)

Not long after, Gabi and T signal that Sonny and Will are needed elsewhere and the guests of honor depart. That's when Sami pounces on Uncle Lucas, knocking his arm right off of Sheryl and pretending it was an accident.

"Lucas, we need to rearrange Allie's schedule!" Sami announces excitedly.

"And we need to do that right now, at our son's wedding?" asks Uncle Lucas drily. He puts his arm back where it was. Sheryl ducks her head to hide her smirk.

"Funny you should mention weddings."

"No, Sami, it actually isn't funny that I should mention weddings because we are actually _at our son's wedding_."

Sami gestures grandly around the room. "And wouldn't it be a waste if all of this got set up and only one marriage came out of it?"

Uncle Lucas and I realize where this is going at the same time. And while I'm hit with a burst of pained loneliness where a moment before I'd been feeling love for everyone in the room, Lucas just looks disgusted. He lowers his voice to an angry hiss. "Sami. No. This is not acceptable. You tried to get Will to share his wedding day with you and EJ already and the kid was horrified. You've had, like, fifteen weddings already. You need to let your son have _one_."

Sami rolls her eyes at Lucas like he's being completely unreasonable, but she doesn't match anger with anger. No, not with Sheryl right there she doesn't. Instead, she strokes the side of Lucas' face. "You've always been so protective of our son. It's why he turned out so well."

"You cannot get married today," Lucas repeats. "Remember how pissed you were when Belle and Philip wanted to share our wedding day because Philip was shipping out? And Belle was your baby sister, not your mother, and she hadn't been married fifteen times already, and did I mention the reason was that Philip was going off to war? Are you and EJ going off to war?"

"I don't feel like that number fifteen is right. I think you just made that up."

"I think I'm probably estimating on the low side."

"Well, either way, this is going to be my last wedding."

I see Sheryl mouth 'bet she's said that before' to Jordan, and I feel like a terrible person for wanting badly to laugh.

Sami either doesn't see or doesn't care. She's still beaming radiantly at Lucas. "I'm not suggesting that we horn in on Will's day. Did I ever say that? Rafe, did I say that?" Now she caresses Rafe's arm. "Lucas just got that idea out of nowhere, didn't he?"

"I wouldn't say nowhere," mutters Rafe.

"Tough crowd," says Sami, still unphased. "No, EJ and I are getting married tomorrow so our family who is in town for Will can come. And yeah, so I won't have to know that my son is married and I'm not. It's just that you need to be able to bring Allie and take her home."

"You know I don't like Allie watching people get shot, and that seems to happen a lot when you marry EJ," says Lucas.

I have several wonderful uncles, but at the moment Lucas is very much my favorite.

"Lucas. You need to be happy for me," Sami instructs.

Lucas sighs. "All right. Text me where and when, and Allie will be there."

"Thank you!" Sami squeals. She kisses Lucas on the cheek, and then kisses Rafe on the cheek for good measure. Then, of course, she kisses EJ on the mouth.

I rethink my no-alcohol policy.

Sami is actually wiping spit off of her lips when she turns to me. "Abigail, you've been such a special friend to EJ, and you're basically a hero to Johnny. You're Arianna's godmother and you were Will's best woman. I would really like it if you could stand up for us tomorrow— for all of us, all of my family."

She knows. She knows about the affair and she's tormenting me, showing me that she's won. That's the only explanation, because she can't possibly be this stupid.

"I'd be honored," I tell her. "But if you're getting married so quickly so your family can be there, wouldn't you rather have a family member stand up for you?"

"All of my family members are so busy," says Sami, and I'm even more convinced that she's messing with me.

"I'm not!" Chelsea pipes up. "I'll stand up for you, Sami. I know Abigail has a thing tomorrow. She might not be able to make the wedding at all, let alone get there early."

"Well, okay." Sami half-laughs. "Thank you, Chelsea."

* * *

"Thank you, Chelsea," I gush when we've retreated to the ladies' room to fix our makeup and gossip about which wedding guests have done what to whom and why. "I couldn't have survived being part of that wedding."

"You're welcome." Chelsea is leaning in close to the mirror, pretending to tease her hair but actually studying my reflection. I know the trick well; I've done it myself, often. "I can't believe she's marrying him, though, after all those things he did. I remember when my brother and my dad were in a plane with Uncle Steve, and EJ brainwashed Uncle Steve to crash the plane because he didn't want Shawn to testify against Patrick Lockhart because then Patrick might have testified against EJ. They all could have died. They would have if Dad hadn't been able to reach Uncle Steve."

"That was a long time ago. People can change."

"Maybe," says Chelsea. "But I'd just as soon Sami took him off the market and spared some other woman from finding out for sure how much he changed. Or didn't."

It's a reflex for me to defend EJ. "You don't know him. How many years has it been since you said a word to him?"

"I don't see you telling me that those things didn't happen."

"A long time ago." And then, I lose my mind. I haven't been able to talk to EJ about anyone, and being able to talk about him with Chelsea when Chelsea is so set against the idea feels like a nasty tease. Suddenly all of my anger at EJ and Sami and myself gets directed at exactly the wrong person. "You know what else happened a long time ago? You ran over your little brother and killed him. How would you like it if no one ever forgave you?"

Perversely, Chelsea proves my point. A long time ago, she would have flown into a rage and stomped out in tears. Now, I see her flinch with pain I should never, never have inflicted on her, but she stands unmoving and won't be swayed from her attempt to protect me. "Even then, that was an accident," she says quietly. "I loved Zach. I was a child. I was careless. I didn't set out to hurt him."

"I know," I tell her, and tears are in my eyes and an apology is on my lips.

She waves the apology off. "I know you're sorry. What I don't want to do is be sorry I didn't remind you of what this man is capable of. I want to remind you that just because the cheating sex was great, that doesn't mean a relationship would be great."

"I really didn't mean that about Zach," I tell her, rather than arguing about how there was a lot more than sex happening between EJ and me. "You didn't deserve that. You've been saving me all week. I'm so sorry."

"I know," she repeats. "Apology accepted." She takes one last glance at her hair, for real this time. "We should go back out."

As we do, I'm sure I hear a stall door swing shut behind us. I whirl around; we'd been alone or I would never have started the conversation in the first place. But once I'd gone and brought Zach into it, we'd both been so keyed up that we wouldn't have noticed if the room had exploded around us.

I run back to check, but I see nothing and no one.

It must have been my imagination.

_**TBC**_


	10. Chapter 10

**Part 10**

I spend all night locked in an internal debate about whether I should go to the next day's special, bonus, two-in-one wedding. Eventually I decide that I will. I've been publicly defending EJ all over town for months. It will look odd if my obvious friendship with him doesn't include attending his wedding. Besides, I can't pass up the chance to get closure. I can attend with Max as my date. I can fake moving on until I really do move on.

And if the whole thing feels like water torture mixed with the rack, well I deserve it. I did something wrong and I can pay the price.

I dawdle as I make my way through the DiMera grounds toward the chairs and altar that have been constructed close to the winding road that runs past the edge of the property. I dawdle so much that when a hidden side door to the main house flies open, I'm sure that it's some servant planning to shoo me in the right direction.

Not for the first time in the past few days, I'm wrong.

It's none other than the groom, in tuxedo pants and shirt without the jacket or tie. He looks wonderful. He usually does.

"Abigail." Just hearing him say my name is a fresh sort of torture. Tarred and feathered. Drawn and quartered. Something.

I force myself to walk toward the seating area. I am not going to have a conversation with EJ. Not now, not ever. There will never again be a reason. Nick is thousands of miles away and there is no remaining proof of our affair.

In two long strides EJ has caught up to me. His hand is on my cheek, hard enough to stop me and turn my head but gentle enough to be a caress. That shouldn't be possible, but EJ is a master of contradiction.

I'm still now, but his hand stays just where it is. We're officially at his wedding and he's touching me in a way that looks every bit as damning as Nick's photographs. "We need to talk," he tells me.

"The last person you need to talk to at your wedding is your mistress. Ex-mistress."

"Unfortunately, that is not the case."

"Are you going to threaten any more members of my family?" I ask.

"I'd like to believe that that was a one time thing," he says almost wryly, and then gets down to the business of what he's doing there, half dressed, not where he's supposed to be on his own wedding day. "Abigail, I want to tell you that I'm sorry for the way you found out about today's… festivities. I would have preferred to tell you myself, and privately, and certainly not while you were at an important family event."

It's not an apology I'd expected, and knowing that EJ thought of me while his wife-to-be was announcing their wedding puts me, just for a moment, back under his spell. "So why didn't you? Doesn't the groom get a vote about when his wedding date gets announced?"

"It happened very quickly. Samantha had previously expressed a desire to be married before William, or at the same time as William, and I managed to talk her out of it." The vein in his head that always shows itself when he's exasperated with Sami pops out. "Apparently William and Lucas had to talk her out of it too. But once she got to the reception she had waited as long as she was going to wait. I couldn't very well tell her that I was unwilling to get married as soon as possible or unwilling to have her announce it. I've been pursuing Samantha for eight years and she knows it. For me to ask her to wait… it would have been suspicious. Disastrous, even."

I shrug. "Well, as long as it's something you wanted eight years ago." Then I almost laugh at the irony. "Eight years ago, there was nothing in the world I wanted more than a date with Max Brady. If it was right then, it must be right now."

"I'm glad that you're getting something that you've wanted for a long time." There's a faraway look in his eyes, one I've never quite seen before. "I hope it turns out just as you'd always hoped it would."

I hadn't intended to have this discussion with him again, but he's left the door open for me. He's practically begging me to ask. And of course, I do it. When I'm next to EJ DiMera, I lose my mind in ways big, small, and yet undiscovered.

"Does marrying Sami feel just as wonderful as you always hoped it would?"

He doesn't meet my eyes. "I enjoyed the toast you made to William and Sonny yesterday. You paid them a real compliment about knowing who they are. It's a compliment you steadfastly refuse to pay me."

I shrug, unapologetic.

"I believe," he continues, "that one of the reasons they define themselves so clearly is because they met each other so early in life. William can say that he loves Sonny. That's who he is. He's never loved another man. I wish for him that he never does."

I wish that for Will, too. I wish that he can be like our great-grandmother who never contemplated anything but a life with our great-grandfather. For the better part of a century, there was never a need. She was content in her life and she knew it.

"When my father sent me to Salem," EJ continues, "it was with strict instructions to find Samantha Brady and have a child with her. I knew who I was- racecar driver, attorney, privileged playboy, but above all Stefano DiMera's son. I was a man who played chess when everyone else played checkers. I was a man who got what he wanted. Regardless of whether I wanted Samantha because it was love at first sight or because my father placed a challenge before me, I was certainly going to have her. And I know that you don't like to hear this, but I did fall in love with her."

"So you've said."

"You would never claim that I don't love Johnny. Johnny came into existence at my father's instruction over Samantha's objections and against my own good judgment. My love for Samantha-"

"Is also against your own good judgment?"

"Is that so uncommon with love?"

He makes a fair point. "That's true," I admit, and even in the midst of this very serious, very inappropriate, possibly life-altering conversation I see a flash of triumph in his eyes. He enjoys it when we spar verbally. I enjoy it, too, even when I lose.

"My love for Samantha, whether real or supposed, has defined me for most of my adult life. That's who I am, since you insist upon asking. I'm Johnny and Sydney's father and Samantha's husband."

"Those things don't have to go together. You'd still be their father even if you weren't married to Sami."

"I am Samantha's husband," he repeats, and I don't know whether he's trying to convince me or himself.

"Not yet. You don't have to be if you don't want to be. Two times you've tried to marry her and been shot in the process. Some people might take that as a sign rather than a challenge. Once you prove to the world that you can marry Sami, what then? Will you be happy because you told everyone you could do it and you did it? Or will you wish that you'd admitted that you got tired of being the errand boy for a crazy person?"

I don't want to give him the satisfaction of being the one to end the conversation when he was the one who started it. I can't stand to hear him scold me for calling Sami names or challenging his decision to get married ten minutes before the big event. I just wanted to quietly suffer through the day and move on with my life.

But if EJ was willing to chase me to London, why wouldn't he be willing to corner me while a priest is standing by to marry him to someone else?

I jog to the seating area as quickly as I can in heels. Max greets me and says he was worried because being late isn't like me, and we hold hands and it's all very nice. There are a couple of dozen people in attendance, mostly family members who are morbidly curious to see what will happen. Sami Brady weddings are known to be an event.

The wedding starts right on time. Sami looks very nice in a pretty blue dress that matches her eyes. She at least has the self-awareness not to wear white. And Chelsea send me the tiniest sympathetic glance out of the corner of her eye.

The children are pretty, lined up in a row: Johnny, Allie, and Sydney. Will isn't there- not because he's protesting but because he's on a mini-honeymoon and Sami and EJ didn't want him to interrupt it.

EJ, naturally, looks perfect.

And then EJ looks at me. Even with Max's hand in mine I'm forced to imagine what it would be like to be the one walking down the aisle and meeting EJ's eyes. I feel real shame even though Max and I reconnected well after things with EJ were over, even though Max and I haven't had a real date or done more than kiss.

For the first time, I wonder if maybe I've been unfair to EJ when I criticize him for remaining engaged to Sami while sleeping with me.

What business did I have criticizing him for not knowing who he was? I am Abigail Johanna Deveraux. I'm Tom and Alice Horton's cherished great-granddaughter. I never intended to grow up to be the other woman. But I have.

It doesn't matter now, anyway. The priest is well on his way. EJ and Sami have, wisely, decided to keep this short and sweet.

"Do you, Samantha, take this man Elvis to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, from this day forward until death do you part?"

"I do," says Sami, sickeningly sweet. She's looking at EJ, of course she is, but one eye strays to me.

She knows. She has to know. This can't be in my head.

Next to me, Max doesn't react. He's noticed nothing.

The priest, too, gives no sign that anything is amiss.

"Do you, Elvis, take this woman Samantha to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, from this day forward until death do you part?"

There's a pause.

There's a long enough pause that even Max whispers "showtime!" in my ear.

And then EJ says it.

"I'm sorry. I don't."

_**TBC**_


	11. Chapter 11

**Part 11**

Five.

Everyone- _everyone_- is holding his or her breath.

Four.

One of Sami's aunts grabs Johnny, Allie, and Sydney and starts hustling them away.

Three.

The priest reaches for Sami, but she sidesteps him.

Two.

EJ sets his feet. He isn't going to move, but he is going to brace himself.

One.

Sami punches EJ, hard, right in the jaw. He doesn't move.  
_  
"You son of a bitch!" _she hollers, full of righteous indignation.

"Don't you want to take this somewhere else, Samantha?" he asks quietly.

She shakes her head in the negative and I can feel the anger rolling off of her in waves. "No, EJ, you have had plenty of opportunities to do this privately. You chose to do it publicly. Let's give our guests a show."

"I know the timing seems terrible," he says, and his voice is somehow even more quiet. Gentler. It's a voice I would expect to hear him use with one of his children, or maybe even with me. I've certainly never heard him use it with Sami. If he had, I would have found it easier to believe that he loved her all along. "But I've only just realized…"

"You've only just realized that you've been sleeping with the babysitter for months?" Sami asks.

If I had any sense of self-preservation, I would run. But if I had any sense of self-preservation, I would never have come here in the first place.

Next to me, Max almost wriggles with schadenfreude. He doesn't realize, yet, who the babysitter is.

"You knew?" asks EJ.

Sami's face twists into a harsh mockery of a smile. "Poor dim, stupid Samantha, right? She doesn't understand about famous artists and great literature and all those intellectually stimulating things. I've got news for you and your little girlfriend, EJ: sometimes things are obvious even to those of us who got pregnant and dropped out of high school instead of studying fourteen different languages all over Europe."

"I never doubted your intelligence. In fact, I was attracted-"

"You were attracted to getting something your daddy couldn't get so he would be proud of you. Stefano never got my mother's love, so you were going to get mine. Once you had it, you didn't have any more use for me." She shakes her head again. "Now, I've heard of men only being in it for the chase, but when the chase lasts eight years? It's kind of ridiculous."

"I was not only in it for the chase. Ever since the first time I saw Johnny-"

"Oh, yes, the child we share because you raped me." Her words drip with venom. "As opposed to Sydney, the child you told me was dead."

"You tried to keep both of those children from me." He's cool and dangerous, just as angry as she is. "If Nicole hadn't switched Sydney and Grace, would I have ever known that I had a daughter? You would have had her calling Rafe 'daddy.' You believed that Grace was mine and you waited until she was dead to tell me."

"I tried to tell you about Sydney so many times. Funny story, the words were halfway out of my mouth when everyone had to leave because you'd just had Philip shot."

"As if you gave a damn about Philip. You were just looking for an excuse to justify what you wanted to do anyway. Don't tell me that you're some great humanitarian who would never take a human life. Or have you forgotten that you shot me in the head? What did you think was going to happen?"

"Nothing." Sami sniffs. "DiMeras don't die, everyone knows that. Something about nature's laws not applying to pure evil."

"So if I'm pure evil, and you believed that I was cheating on you, why did you agree to marry me?"

Sami shrugs. "You didn't have me sign a prenup. It would have been easier to destroy you if I was the legal owner of half of the DiMera holdings."

He takes a step closer to her. "Do you know why I didn't ask for a prenup?" She doesn't ask. "Because I didn't need one. You have never been able to get anything over on me, Samantha. Not back when you used to do the Salem Police Department's dirty work for them. Not when you thought that if you married me it would keep your family safe from my father because I just loved you so much. You couldn't have caused me any real trouble no matter what your legal standing, and do you know why? Not because you weren't educated in the finest schools in Europe. But because you lack the impulse control that a three-year-old child ordinarily demonstrates, and you lack the resolve to clean up your own messes. You always expect someone else to pick up the pieces of whatever you've destroyed, and if I got bloody tired of doing it, there's not a person in the world who would blame me!"

"Oh, I'm the one who destroys things? You've done nothing but destroy everything you've touched since the day you came to Salem. If I were going to count the members of my family that you tried to kill, it would take me all day!"

"Only because you'd keep getting distracted midway through your count. '_How dare William and Gabriela try to raise their own child as they see fit?'_"

"You leave Will out of this! He is not your son, he's just the boy that you used to threaten to kill to get his mother to do whatever you wanted."

EJ shrugs, unapologetic. "You've agreed to marry me how many times since then? Come running to me with your secrets and the problems you wanted taken care of? Been a part of my business affairs? Raised children with me? Made love to me even while you were supposed to be with your precious, upstanding Rafael?"

"We thought Johnny was dead when that happened!"

"That isn't a turn-on for most people, Samantha. You're right down in the gutter with me. You can pretend otherwise, but no one is going to believe you. You were the one who chose to marry the man who did all of those terrible things to you. You were the one who chose to marry the man you thought deserved to be shot in the head. You have forfeited any right to throw any of that back in my face after all these years."

And suddenly Sami's whole posture changes. She's cooler now, too, calculating, in control. "You know what, EJ? You're right. You're right about that. And when I agreed that my destiny was you, not Lucas or Rafe or any of a million other men who would never think of pretending that my children were dead, when I agreed to that, I accepted that I just wasn't capable of anything else. I agreed that you and I could be bad together. Romantic in its way, right? Take me as I am. I'll never ask you to be better and I won't try to be better myself. I suppose that was a silver lining. But the other silver lining, the other silver lining was supposed to be that you would never cheat on me. Tell Johnny I didn't love him any more while he was sick with cancer, that was something you would do. Chloroform me in front of Allie, that was something you would do. Have Lucas locked in a freezer truck to die, that was something you would do- and don't look so surprised that I know that was you, who else would it be? And let's not forget the time you had Rafe kidnapped and tortured and sent an imposter into my home to rape me and terrify my children. That was something you would do. But cheating? Wasn't that supposed to be the one line you wouldn't cross?"

"I'm sorry, Samantha."

He means it.

In that moment, I mean it too. I've said before, many times, that I was sorry about the affair. But I was sorry that it might hurt Johnny and Sydney. I was sorry that it might embarrass my mother and brother. I was sorry that it might have made my family think less of me. I was sorry that it would have tarnished my golden girl image that Nick accused me of cherishing. (And he would know: he'd cherished his golden boy image, too, before he'd fallen off his pedestal.)

I'd been sorry in a selfish way.

Now, for almost the first time, I deeply understand that Sami was an innocent, at least in this. I'd made horrible rationalizations to myself. _She used to embarrass Will at school with her antics, she deserves it, _I might as well have said. _She doesn't see EJ the way I do, she deserves it._ At one point, I'd questioned whether EJ had really raped her; even Nick had told me to back off of that idea. What I should have questioned was why she would choose to build a life with a man who had raped her and how to get myself out of her life where I had so inappropriately inserted myself.

And here I am, listening to what should be a private argument.

I squeeze Max's hand. "We should go," I whisper.

"And miss the fun?"

"It's not our place."

"All right," he agrees. We stand as subtly as we can and work our way toward the road.

Sami's voice carries after us. _"Leaving so soon, Abigail?"  
_  
I don't turn. I walk faster.  
_  
"You're a part of this, too, Abigail!"_

It's my moment of truth. I stop, and I turn. I will face my shame with my head up and work to rebuild my reputation.

"I'm sorry, Sami." I doubt that she'll believe me. But she deserves to have it said, and she deserves to have it said right this second in front of the world, or at least assorted members of our intertwined families.

Sami turns back to the crowd. "Know why she's apologizing? Have you put the pieces together? Perfect little Abigail Deveraux is the babysitter who decided that it's okay to have an affair with an engaged man."

"I'm sorry," I repeat. I wonder if I should stand there and take the punch the way EJ did. I don't think I _could_ take a punch as well as EJ. Sami steps forward, and I step back.

"Were you sorry when you did this same exact thing to my sister?"

I gulp. I had tried to write off my infatuation with Austin as some sort of temporary insanity. "I never-" I stammer. "I never did anything with Austin."

Sami sort of shimmies her shoulders, in in that moment I feel something unexpected: envy. Sami has a kind of confidence that I'll never have. She's had every experience that there is, and the ability to talk about angel wings in famous works of art pales in comparison.

Of course EJ would have wanted her.

Of course he would have.

She steps forward. I step back.

"One more thing we don't have in common," Sami says conversationally. "I've done all kinds of things with Austin. Not that anyone ever politely forgets when it's me. Funny story, Austin dumped me at the altar once, too. You were probably too young to have front row seats for that one. Will doesn't even remember it, thank God. But you know what Austin said after he told everyone that I was too horrible to marry? He said, 'none of us live in glass houses.' He was upset, and everyone knew what he meant to say. He meant to say that all of us live in glass houses. He meant to say that no one should judge me too harshly because no one else was perfect either. But I always thought that that Freudian slip was just so fitting. _None of us live in glass houses. _Sami can do the wrong thing, but the rest of us are saints. People like my sister Carrie. My sister Belle. You. Your mother."

"I never said I was a saint."

"You didn't have to. Everyone else said it for you." She steps forward. I step back. "Now, I'm not going to say I'm not jealous of you, but it's not for the reasons you'd think. It's really only the shallow stuff. I miss the way my skin looked when I was 25. It doesn't matter how strong the sunblock you're using is, Abigail, it's just not going to look that good in ten years. Yeah, it's nice to be young and pretty and innocent. I bet it's nice to look like Scarlett Johansson. Is it?"

"I don't know," I mumble. It's not the first time I've heard the comparison, but really, pretty or not, I'm not the kind of woman men flock to. When I was younger, the boys I liked gravitated to Chelsea; when I was older, the men I liked gravitated to Melanie. I wasn't ever the star of the movie; I was the supportive best friend.

"And she's modest, too! Yeah, if I was a dead ringer for one of the most gorgeous movie stars on the planet I'd pretend to be surprised every time someone pointed it out. That's the way to go, Abigail. But I'll never know. I was just the one they called Carrie's fat little sister."

For as long as I can remember, Sami has had a body to die for. As I'm trying to think of something to say, she steps forward. I step back.

"Cat got your tongue, Abigail? Never mind, I don't need you for this conversation anyway. The wedding day is supposed to be all about the bride, right? So, as I was saying, sure, it would be nice to have that pure untouched thing you have going on. But I don't need the pressure of always having everyone tell me how perfect I am while all the time I know that I'm not. You can have that. But here's one piece of advice from the devil to the angel. Remember this, Abigail. Are you listening?"

"I'm listening."

"If he'll cheat with you, he'll cheat on you."

She steps forward. I step back.

Several voices shout, Max's among them. I don't understand why.

An eternity passes, or it might be a fraction of a second, before I register that I'm looking at a car from an angle one should never, _ever_ look at a car.

Every step I backed away from Sami, I backed closer to the road. I put myself right in the path of oncoming traffic.

Things flash before my eyes too quickly for me to understand them.

I have time for one more coherent thought: _I'm going to die. I hope JJ and Mom can be strong for each other._

Then everything is black.

_**TBC**_


	12. Chapter 12

**Part 12**

I hear my own voice calling out before I'm awake.

"Mom?"

In a bleary haze of confused discomfort, I don't know that I've been actively avoiding her for months. I only know that I'm hurt and disoriented and I want my mother.

"I'm right here, Baby."

Good. I don't know where I am or how I got here but I know that she can fix everything. Hearing her voice, for whatever reason, makes me think that I'm seven years old and we're living in Francophone Africa where my Grandpa Bill runs a hospital. That's where we must be. The hospital. "Où sommes-nous?"

"Nowhere that we need to speak French, Baby." There's a slightly hysterical edge to her voice.

I'm starting to come back to myself, at least enough to understand without help that French was the wrong language. In fact, French is always the wrong language for me because I stopped studying it after high school. My Spanish is much better.

I open my eyes and they meet my mother's. Hers are strained and red; she's been crying. "I thought we were in Africa," I tell her. "Remember when we first got there? We were so happy, you and me and Daddy."

"We were very happy, Baby," she says. "What's the last thing you remember?"

In my blurry mind, I think she's asking about my last memory of Africa. "You basically rushing us out of there in the middle of the night because Collin Murphy left for Ireland. I was screaming that Daddy would come back to us and we couldn't leave."

Then it hits me like a fresh new wound that my father is dead. He died saving me, but that wasn't the end. No, so many things have happened since then.

"EJ's wedding." I try to piece it together out loud. "EJ and Sami's wedding. I couldn't decide whether to go, and I was afraid she knew…"

Sami's voice echoes in my head._ "If he'll cheat with you, he'll cheat on you."_

"She did know," I correct myself aloud.

"Sami Brady is the last thing you need to worry about," she says, with more than a little edge to her tone. "If she lays a finger on you again, she'll be the one lying down in traffic. And all of Salem will stand up and cheer."

My mother's rant about Sami goes on a little longer as she helps me sit up and take a drink of water. I'm still trying to take stock of the situation, but I half-listen. "… You'd think she'd have the grace not to have weddings any more… if she was surprised that it didn't go well, she was the only one… even Sami can't be that much of an idiot, can she?... Why your father was so fond of her I'll never understand…"

My breath catches in my throat, again, at the reminder that my father used to be alive and now he's dead.

Her whole body snaps to attention at the sound. "I'm sorry, Baby," she whispers, stroking my hair with one hand. "Listen to me, going on like that. I was really, really scared when I got the call, Abigail."

"I know. I'm sorry, Mom."

"You have nothing to be sorry for."

I can't help but smile at the irony. "Did you even hear why Sami was mad at me?"

"That's not important."

I try to sit up straighter, but I hurt too much.

"Don't do that, Baby," she soothes. "You have a broken wrist and a broken ankle and enough bruises to keep you in bed all by themselves. And…" She trails off, both foreboding and momentous.

"And what?"

"Abigail. Baby. Did you know that you were pregnant?"

The world stops spinning.

No, I hadn't known, but everything suddenly makes sense. The nausea. The tiredness. The signs I missed while I was patting myself on the back for being so clever when I had to handle EJ and Nick.

And EJ didn't marry Sami. Surely that was because of me, and of course starting our life together with a baby on the way is getting things a bit out of order but the child will still be a blessing and EJ and I should start discussing names right away—

"I'm pregnant?" I breathe.

Tears fill her eyes and she squeezes my hand tightly. She shakes her head. "No. The baby didn't make it. The trauma of the accident caused a miscarriage."

"My baby's dead?"

The child I had cherished for all of five seconds is gone and I start to sob.

My mother says all the right things. She says that nothing else will ever be this hard. She says that the pain will never go away but that I will learn to live with it. She says that none of this was my fault and that babies who are strong enough to be born usually outlast whatever the world throws at their mothers. She says that I will see the goodness of this child when I have more children, later, as the doctor has already promised that I can. She says the child is in a warm, beautiful place where she will never feel any pain.

"She? It was a little girl?"

"She was." This tiny fragment of information about my child, the only thing I will ever know about her, is both painful and comforting.

"Alexandra," I muse. "I think EJ would have wanted to name her after his sister."

_EJ._ EJ has lost children before. Sami and Nicole tried to keep him from grieving, tried to steal as much of the experience as possible from him. I need to see him. I need to tell him. He needs to hear about our daughter from me, and right away, whether this is destined to be the last experience we ever share or not.

"Mom, is EJ here? At the hospital?"

My mother grimaces. "No one could get him to leave."

"I want to see him."

"Abigail, you need your rest."

Energy and fury rip through me. _"I am not going to rest until I see EJ! I need to talk to EJ!"_

I can see the wheels turning in her head. She doesn't like the idea of me seeing EJ; she doesn't like it one bit. But she knows full well that I will drag my broken body out of the room if that's what it takes to get to him.

She wavers.

To make her decision easier, I pull myself up with my one good arm and angle my one good leg in the general direction of the floor. My head spins; the doctors did not go easy on the painkillers.

"Baby, lie down."

"If EJ won't come in here, I'm going to find him."

She swallows her sigh. "You win. I'll send EJ in."

* * *

EJ bursts through the door almost before my mother closes it. She obviously didn't have to look for him. He was waiting.

"Oh, Abigail," he breathes, my name a pained exhalation. He collapses bonelessly into the chair beside my bed. "Oh, Abigail, I am so, so sorry."

"I'm the one who's sorry." Nothing in my life has prepared me for this moment. Maybe EJ was right. Maybe I am a perpetual child who got in way over her head with the grown-ups.

"I tried to get to you," he tells me. "I could see that you were too close to the road, but Samantha's father thought I was trying to get to her, and of course he put himself in between us and that meant..."

"It's not your fault. I should have just let her hit me like you did."

"No, you should not have. I made a promise to Samantha and I broke it. She's right to be angry with me. You were—well, I know that you don't like to be called innocent. But you didn't owe Samantha anything."

"Any woman owes it to any other woman to respect her relationship." I've made excuses to myself and even to EJ in the past. I won't do it anymore. I'd seen Sami as someone who could have any man she wanted and so insisted on having them all. Sami had seen herself as Carrie's fat little sister. Women do these things to each other. They shouldn't.

"Are you all right? They wouldn't tell me how badly you were injured because I'm not your family. Jennifer whispered the diagnosis into Jack Junior's ear so I wouldn't overhear."

How very mature of my mother—although it actually does sound like something my father would have done.

I press my lips tightly together so I don't burst into tears again before I can get the news out. EJ thinks the worst that he has to worry about is how long I'll be on crutches before my ankle is repaired. He doesn't know that a life was lost.

"No," I tell him. "I'm not all right, and neither are you."

"I know that," he whispers. The sentiment is sweet: he's not okay because I'm in a hospital bed and he was a part of the chain of events that led me here. But he doesn't know what he's talking about.

"You don't know. I didn't know until just now, I didn't know until it was too late." The words start to fall out of me in a rush. "I'm so sorry EJ. I never would have hidden this from you. Never. I would have been more careful, I would have stayed in Europe while we decided what to do. I would have—"

He takes my hand, gently, like he's afraid that even the slightest touch could hurt me. "Abigail, in one word or less, tell me what happened."

One word or less?

"Miscarriage," I manage, and it seems like a cop-out, too technical a term even if it's a word so powerful that no one ever so much as _thinks_ it in the presence of a pregnant woman.

He doesn't let go of my hand, but he's rocked back against his chair as if the one awful word had dealt him a physical blow.

And I make him feel worse. I don't give myself the cop-out. "I lost our baby. I didn't know I was pregnant and I let her die. You have to believe me, EJ, if I had known I would never never never never…"

He stand up, looming over me, and even though he hasn't let go of my hand I'm sure he's going to storm out of the room.

"Shh," he murmurs. With his free hand, he takes down the rails on the side of the bed and lies down beside me. He's careful not to touch me where I'm bandaged and broken, but having the heat of his body next to me still helps.

"I'm so sorry," I tell him again. "I thought I was so smart, but I didn't know why I was sick to my stomach all the time. I blamed it on stress."

"A perfectly reasonable conclusion," he whispers in my ear. "Abigail, I should have—I should have asked you if it was a possibility, especially after William told me that you fainted. As inexperienced as you were, pregnancy might not have occurred to you but it certainly should have occurred to me."

"I know where babies come from. I haven't believed in the stork since… ever. Dad tried to tell me that, and Mom wasn't having it. She told me the truth and he, well, I think he really agreed with her but he said he was glad that they didn't have a boy because then it would have been his job to explain. This is before JJ was born, obviously."

He taps me lightly on my good arm, watching me closely and letting me ramble without interrupting.

"I went to my Mom's prenatal appointments with JJ," I continue. "I was so angry with her. My father was presumed dead and I blamed her. I don't even remember why. But when I saw that first sonogram… oh, I knew how much I loved JJ right away. I wasn't going to miss a thing. I wasn't going to let Mom go alone. I told the nurse that I would be there every single time and I was. And Gabi, too. I had front row seats the whole time she was pregnant with Ari. It's not that I don't know what pregnancy is like."

"You hadn't had an opportunity to experience it yourself," he says, still trying to absolve me. "It's quite different."

"Can't you just yell at me and tell me how horrible I am?" I ask.

"No, I cannot do that, because it isn't true. This was a terrible accident, Abigail. The accident was horrible. You are wonderful."

"So wonderful that I let our daughter die."

"You didn't allow anything to happen. Something happened to you. Abigail, look at me." I don't want to, but I do. "You always know when I'm lying, correct?"

In the past I'd liked to think that, but after the day I've had I don't know if I know anything anymore.

"Of course you do," EJ completes easily for me. "You know when I'm lying and you know I'm not lying when I tell you that this is not your fault. Our… daughter?"

I nod. "It was a girl."

"She would have been loved and cherished by both of her parents. She would have been every bit as smart and beautiful as you. I'm sure of it. And more importantly, she would have been as forthright as you. Thank you for telling me about her. Thank you for letting me mourn her with you. That's not an opportunity I've had in the past."

I can't take his gratitude at the moment. "I think she would have been a lot like you," I say instead.

He doesn't answer. He kisses me on the head and tells me to close my eyes. He won't be here when I wake up, he says, because my family would never stand for it and I don't need the stress. But he promises that I should expect a daily visit as long as I'm confined to the hospital.

The promise would have made my heart soar a month ago, or a week ago, or yesterday. Now it's just a reminder that I've messed things up, and terribly.

_**TBC**_


	13. Chapter 13

**Part 13**

For the next few weeks, my life has two distinct parts: medical procedures and visiting hours. The medical procedures- tests and surgeries and physical therapy- aren't really so bad. The doctors and nurses are wonderful, and I truly believe that they're wonderful with everyone, not just with Tom Horton's great-granddaughter who knows the majority of the board members.

The visiting hours are rough. I'd take more poking and prodding if I had a choice.

The first visitor is JJ.

"I was really really really worried," he tells me, and I know he was. I'd have been out of my mind with fear if it had been him under the wheels of that car.

"I'm just fine," I assure him. "I'm sorry I scared you."

"You shouldn't be sorry for _scaring_ me," he says, and his inflection makes it clear, in a gentle way, that I do have something to be sorry for. And I know I do.

"I'm sorry for not setting a better example," I try, and it rips my heart a little. "I hated the way everyone told you to look up to me, when all that time I was making worse mistakes than you ever could. I felt like the worst hypocrite in the world."

He leans back in his chair, folds his arms, and eyes me quizzically. He looks very much like our father in that moment. "Wow," he says. "You really aren't who everyone says you are."

"I know."

"I mean, everyone thinks you're so smart and here you are completely missing the point."

Now he's starting to annoy me like only a baby brother can. "What do you mean?"

"Abigail, I don't care if you messed up. It makes me feel better, actually. I like you when you're screwing up."

I laugh, and I wince. Laughing hurts. Laughing isn't something I've done in a while.

JJ thinks on it. "I don't like you ending up in the hospital, but nobody needs a perfect older sister."

"I wasn't trying to be perfect. I was trying to do the right thing because you're supposed to try to do the right thing."

He shrugs casually, like he doesn't quite see the right thing as a holy grail. "Now, EJ, he wouldn't be my first choice for you. He wouldn't be in my top ten choices for you. He wouldn't be in my top one hundred-"

"That'll be fine, JJ."

"But you could have told me," he says, quiet and earnest. "You didn't have to avoid me. I'll keep an open mind. You are smart, Abigail, and if you love him then I'll try to see what you see. When Mom got together with Daniel I thought he was the worst, but he makes her happy, you know? I want what she wants. I want what you want. I will always support you, okay? Dad isn't here so sometimes we have to do that for each other."

Everything he says is the truth and I know it. "I'm glad Dad isn't here to see me right now," I tell him before he goes. "But JJ, it breaks my heart that he isn't here to see you. He would be so proud."

* * *

When EJ comes to see me the second time, he locks the door behind him and asks if he can join me on the bed again. When I say yes, he arranges himself carefully so that the decision to touch or crowd is up to me. I do want to touch him, and when I scoot closer he wraps his arm snugly around me.

"How are you doing physically?" he asks.

"Sore." I try to think of a more elaborate answer, but none is forthcoming. "Sore," I repeat. That covers it.

"And the emotional side of things?"

"Sad." I sigh. "JJ was here and he was hurt that I avoided him instead of telling him about you and me."

"He may be your brother, but some things aren't his business."

That's true, but not really what I was getting at. "I didn't tell him- I didn't tell him that I was pregnant. I want that to be between you and me. Not because I'm ashamed of her, but because no one else could mourn her. We didn't have a chance to get attached, but we know how special she would have been. Everyone else would say 'I'm sorry' like that's enough. And it's not enough. The world should have stopped for her."

"Absolutely. If that's what you want. But I would ask that you allow me one exception, Abigail."

"Who?" If Lexie were alive, I could have imagined EJ talking to her and I never would have objected. But considering my past with Chad, EJ sharing this with him would be beyond weird, and no one should ever go to Stefano DiMera with sensitive information. The children are too young to be told, and EJ doesn't have any close friends. Then, belatedly, it hits me. "You want to tell Sami about our baby?"

It's a sharp, stabbing pain to compliment my dull achiness. Our affair had to be a secret to protect Sami, but my dead baby can't be a secret because he needs one more thing to throw at her the next time they're comparing their horrible, disgusting pasts. Probably they'll use it as foreplay. They did tell the world that Sami cheated on Rafe because she thought Johnny was dead and somehow that turned her on.

"Get out," I tell EJ.

He doesn't move. "If you don't want me to, I won't. But I'd like to explain why."

I look at him and wait.

"Samantha and I are in agreement that our relationship has run its natural course. Or its unnatural course. Things being as they are, the town is not big enough for the two of us. And yet there are two children over whom she has complete custodial rights. I have suggested that a compromise might be that she leaves Salem to place her life on an appropriate course. She is reluctant, with Salem being her family home. Her parents and brother are here, as well as William and little Allie. I want to make it very clear what her actions have cost me so that she will be completely aware of how generous an offer I'm making."

"What exactly are you offering?"

"Not to have her killed and not to pursue primary custody of Johnny and Sydney if she leaves this week."

"That's very restrained of you."

"I took a lesson from the way you handled Nicholas."

I sigh. I don't like it, but I do like the way that EJ is trying to take control without further bloodshed over what most likely was an accident. "All right."

"Thank you." He kisses my forehead and lies close to me until a nurse objects to the locked door.

* * *

Chelsea plops down hard in the chair. Her travel bag falls to the floor beside her. She's going back to London and I'm going to miss her.

"I know I can't talk you out of it," she says without preamble, without so much as an inquiry into how my broken bones are knitting up. "But I want you to tell me the minute you want out."

"I'm not even in," I point out. EJ isn't married to Sami, but that doesn't mean that he's somehow with me.

"It's a matter of time, and not very much," says Chelsea sagely. "He's lurking around out there. He's got a present for you, too."

I try to downplay it, like I've been trying to downplay my connection to EJ for months. "He was probably here for a board meeting and picked something up in the gift shop downstairs. No big deal."

"The gift shop downstairs doesn't sell things in little blue boxes," says Chelsea snidely. "He's done with Sami and he's moving on to you just like you wanted. And like I said, I know I can't talk you out of it and I won't try. But I want to promise not to say I told you so if things go badly. And I want you to promise never to be afraid to come to me."

"EJ isn't who you think he is. People change. They meet the right person, or they have the right experience, and they change."

"Promise."

"Fine, Chelsea. I promise."

Her intentions are good, but she's made it easy for me not to miss her quite so much.

* * *

When EJ comes in, he does, in fact, have a Tiffany-blue box in his hand. "Your friend Chelsea does not approve of me," he says unnecessarily.

"What did she say?"

"Nothing. She let her glare do the talking. She believes that I am about to seduce you again." He waves the box at me.

"Are you?" I ask. I'm confused enough that it seems like a valid question.

"No. This is merely a thank you gift." He opens the box to reveal a yellow gold chain with a matching pendant. The pendant is deceptively simple, with threads looping through one another to form an abstract flower.

"It's beautiful."

"I thought you would like it."

"Why are you thanking me?"

"For carrying our daughter for as long as you did. For allowing me to know about her as soon as you could."

"EJ that- that doesn't warrant a gold necklace."

"No. It warrants more. You know, there was a time that I would have laughed at the idea that some things are beyond price, but I've learned otherwise. This necklace is not some sort of payment. It's a reminder that we created a life together even if we will never meet her. Perhaps it will be too painful for you to wear this necklace and you'll want to put it away. But perhaps someday you'll want to wear it in her honor and smile because we know that she would have been wonderful. Either way is fine with me, but I wanted you to have something."

I lean forward and brush my hair away from my neck, and EJ fastens the necklace for me with practiced ease.

* * *

Max leaves a day after Chelsea because he and Kayla had some project to finish up. I'm almost surprised that he comes to see me at all.

He looks so awkward that part of me wants to laugh, and I'm struck with a powerful wave of deja vu. When Max first came to Salem years ago, he and my cousin Stephanie went on a date or two before he decided that a couple of dates was too much commitment for the playboy Max Brady. He dumped her while she was lying in a hospital bed after an accident.

She was so upset that she hyperventilated. At the time I thought that that was reasonable, because who _wouldn't _want more from Max Brady? Several years later, when he told me that we would never be, I was so angry that I stomped off to join my parents in Europe without even saying goodbye. That was after I spent months holding his hand and telling him that it was _totally_ okay for him to dump Mimi Lockhart while her life was falling apart because it wasn't his job to support her through all that mess that wasn't his fault.

He doesn't have to dump me, exactly. We never did more than kiss and talk, and our first pseudo-date was interrupted by his niece shouting to the world that I'd slept with her fiance. But he's nervous and I don't blame him.

After some chit-chat about how I'll be back on my feet soon, he takes the plunge. "I have to get back to London soon. Today, actually. The garage needs me, and my life is there. So it was nice that we got to reconnect for a while but it's not like we were actually dating or anything."

He has not gotten better at this.

But I have.

"Yeah, it's too bad we didn't have more time together," I agree. "But my life is here, yours is there."

His eyes widen in surprise. He really expected a fight.

"Have a safe trip," I add, as casual as can be. "Next time you're in Salem, say hi if you get a chance."

His eyes, if possible, get even wider. I wish I had a camera.

Then he says something that sounds sincere. "I really wish we'd gotten our timing right, you and me. I always thought we would, somehow."

"I did too," I admit. "But this isn't that time." I don't say that, now, I don't expect that there ever will be a time and that I'm fine with that.

"Be careful with EJ DiMera," he blurts out. "I know I don't have a right to say this—"

"You really don't."

"But I will anyway. You deserve better."

"Bye, Max," I dismiss. "You'd better get to the airport soon. Security lines can be really long this time of day."

And he's gone.

* * *

The next time EJ comes in with a much larger box, this one in the cream and green colors of the local bookstore.

"Delivery for Miss Abigail Deveraux," he tells me. While talking to Max, my teenage crush, made me feel old, talking to EJ makes me feel like a little kid, wiggling and anxious and wanting that present. It's funny how things work.

It's a series of mysteries set in Rome. I've never read them, but friends have mentioned them as good mind candy. They're exactly what I need to pass the hours in the hospital where I'm well enough to be bored but not well enough for much else.

"Have you read them?" he asks.

I shake my head. "No."

"They're amusing. Not great art but I don't think you're up to great art right now. If you'd give me the name of an author you'd prefer, I can certainly—"

"They're perfect." And they really, truly, honestly are. I wish I were recovered enough to bounce out of the bed and throw my arms around EJ's neck, kissing his cheek for being so spontaneously sweet. I giggle at the thought.

"You're in a good mood today. I'm glad," EJ tells me. He sits on the edge of the bed instead of lying next to me. It's no less intimate, somehow. "Care to tell me what's so funny?"

"The difference between you and Max. You've both been good friends to me, and you're both people I care about. But you're very different."

"I'm sure Maxwell and I are both pleased to hear that. Different how?"

"The Christmas I was eighteen years old, Philip Kiriakis was injured in the war and his father brought him home to recover," I begin, wanting to spin out the whole story, wanting to stretch out our time together.

"I recall that."

"Victor didn't want anyone to know where Philip was. When Max and Mimi started tracking him down, Victor was worried. So he had them kidnapped and he locked them in the basement of an abandoned church on a Titan property outside of town. When I went to Max's garage and realized he'd been kidnapped, I was terrified. I called the police, and I spent all day telling Nick over and over again that I wished I'd been the one who was kidnapped. I said I would rather have died with Max than lived without him. I was… you might say I was obsessed. I mean, when Nick Fallon has to tell you to take it down a few notches, you're obsessed."

"You were very young," says EJ patiently, not encouraging me to get to the point any faster than I want to.

"The next day I went to City Hall. I found the records of every property Victor owned. I drove out to the farm. It was late at night, and it was snowing, and the road didn't even go by the church. But I said to myself 'Nice girls don't die on Christmas Eve,' and I kept going. And I found them."

"Of course you did."

"It didn't exactly make Max return my feelings. He started kissing Mimi right there in front of me."

"Ouch."

"It was a reality check. But then, he did buy me a present. He bought me a hardback volume of Shakespeare's sonnets."

"That's nice. I wouldn't have expected him to have that in him."

"He asked me if I'd read them."

"Of course, your father had practically raised you on them."

"And that would occur to you. It wouldn't to Max."

He leans in close to me. "Maxwell was never going to be a match for you, it's true."

We spend the rest of his visit talking about literature, great and otherwise. I don't even remember to ask how his negotiations with Sami went.

Sami doesn't matter so much now.

* * *

My warm and fuzzy thoughts of Sami not mattering so much are shot to hell when Will comes to visit.

"How are you feeling?" he asks as soon as he gets halfway through the door. "Is there anything I can get you? Do for you? Anything at all?"

Will is so ridiculously nice. It's like Sami didn't pass on any genes at all, and Uncle Lucas only passed along his very kindest ten percent.

"I'm fine, Will," I assure.

"You're not fine. My mom basically shoved you into the path of a moving car. I mean, she says it wasn't on purpose and I honestly think that's true, but these things happen around my mom. I would have come to see you earlier, but no one told me—"

"You were on your honeymoon! It was already short enough."

"I would have come," Will says stubbornly.

"You're so nice," I say, because that fact overwhelms all other thoughts in my head.

"Because I care about my cousin getting run over?"

"Will, I wrecked your mother's relationship. Your family. And I did that while I was supposed to be best woman at your wedding, and Ari's godmother. You have a right to be mad about that."

He smiles. "Did you think I didn't know about you and EJ before the wedding?"

Elation and deflation, simultaneously. "Chelsea said she thought you guessed when we had Nick's intervention."

"That was when I was sure, yeah."

I blush. "I'm that obvious."

He tries to soften the blow. "I know you really well."

"You forgive me?"

"I'm going to tell you the same thing I told you at JJ's party. My mom destroys her own relationships without any help, and this was the most toxic one she ever had. I love my mom, but I'm not under any illusions. It was never whether she and EJ would implode. It was always how. I'm glad she left Salem. I'm going to miss her and I'm going to take Ari to visit every chance I get, but her best chance at straightening herself out is being somewhere new. Somewhere she's not infamous."

"She's already gone?" I don't know why that gives me mixed feelings, but it does. There's relief that she won't try to kill me, and that Johnny and Sydney won't have to go through an extended custody battle. There's regret that I had something to do with ending her little family. And there's… disappointment? It's almost as if I had an expectation of closure that I will never get.

"She left a few hours ago," Will confirms. "And she said that if the time was right, I could tell you she said she was sorry about the baby. You weren't in Salem when we lost my sister Grace, but you can believe that she doesn't wish anything like that on anyone. Neither do I, Abigail."

"Thank you." I don't even mind that Sami told Will about my daughter. It's right that he knows why his mother is gone.

But even Will isn't so sweet that he fails to issue a warning. "All those things my mom and EJ yelled at each other at their wedding? They're true, and that's not even half of it. I'll tell you more if you want to hear."

"I don't."

He smiles mildly. "Then I hope you think really hard about what you want in a relationship before you do anything with EJ."

And he's gone.

_**TBC**_


	14. Chapter 14

**Part 14  
**  
When the doctors decide that I'm ready to go home, the first person I want to tell—before my brother or mother or Gabi or Will—is EJ. I've fallen back into the habit of wanting to tell him absolutely everything. A thing can't happen without me thinking of exactly how I'll describe it and what he might find interesting and where the conversation might lead us.

A month ago I would have had to find a way to distract myself. Work. Travel. Anything. But now I don't see any reason to stop. EJ is no longer an engaged man so I'm not wrecking any homes. My family already knows about EJ and me so I'm not stressing anyone out more than they already are. And most important of all, EJ is really, truly as interested in me as I am in him. I didn't tell him to visit me every day; he comes on his own. I certainly didn't tell him to bring me books or jewelry. (I knew a certain subset of girls at Salem University who thought of getting "the little blue box" from a man as a life milestone. It meant you were a real woman in a way that a job or a college degree or even sex could not. I always thought it was ridiculous. But I can't deny that a gift of expensive jewelry sends a pretty strong signal.)

EJ isn't Chad, who only wanted me as a place keeper with a bonus virginity prize when he couldn't have Melanie. EJ isn't Max, who dated every woman who crossed his path other than me. EJ isn't Josh or Cameron, who were interested when I was in front of them but not interested enough to integrate me into their lives. And, most importantly, EJ isn't Austin. This isn't in my head.

I can't wipe the smile off my face when EJ comes into the room.

"Why are you so happy, Abigail?" he asks.

"I'm always happy to see you."

The corner of his mouth quirks up wryly. "I know that isn't true. I distinctly recall a moment or two where you very clearly told me that you could have done without seeing me."

"The past is the past," I say, playfully dismissive.

"And what is it that is so wonderful about the present?"

"I'm going home tomorrow morning!" I nearly bounce off the bed in delight, but I've come far enough with my physical therapy that that wouldn't be a disaster.

I'm happy to the point of distraction, but I'm not so distracted that I don't see his face fall behind the polite mask of congratulations. "That's wonderful, Abigail," he says.

"I thought it was," I muse. "But I'm not sure you agree."

"Abigail, don't be silly. Of course I want you to make progress with your recovery and be where you're most comfortable and with the people who love you."

I nod. I don't doubt that he wants those things. "But you're also a little disappointed?" I ask.

He hedges. "Disappointment is a strong word."

"What's a better word?" I challenge. I spent a lifetime watching my parents, journalists that they were, relate through word games. The fact that EJ can play them with me either means that I've met my match or that I have serious daddy issues. (It could be both.)

"Bittersweet," he decides at last. "Abigail, the most important thing is that you're well. But I won't deny that I'll miss those moments we've shared here in the hospital."

"You can come visit me at home." I state the obvious. "And I can come visit you, or meet you somewhere, now that I can move again."

"It's not as much a matter of physical place as it is metaphorical place. Surely you realize that."

Actually, I hadn't realized anything of the kind. I don't know what he's talking about. "What kind of metaphorical place is this, then?"

He purses his lips as he thinks about it. "It's a place that's isolated from the conflicting forces of the real world. It's not unlike the Horton cabin was on the day that I met you there to keep you from sharing your suspicions about Nick's disappearance with the police."

I can think of several ways that the hospital and the Horton cabin are very, very different.

EJ sees my barely-swallowed amusement. "They're not alike in… specific purpose, of course," he concedes. "But while you're here, everyone is focused on healing you. No one is going to cause you stress by, for example, objecting to my visits."

"Everyone objects to your visits," I point out.

"They tell you that they wish you would choose another object for you affections, but they don't pressure you or manipulate you." He holds up his hand to stop me when he sees that I'm about to object. I wait patiently. I've learned that that's one of the most important things to do with EJ: hear him out. Everyone likes to be heard out, of course, with EJ it has a particularly powerful effect. Between Sami and Stefano, I don't know how many times in his life anyone has ever really listened to him.

"The main thing," he continues, "is my life. Me. In a carefully monitored hospital room where a young woman is mourning her baby, the DiMera lifestyle isn't likely to take over. But the moment you step foot outside that door, Abigail, dozens if not hundreds of people would want something from you to get to me. The most significant of whom is obviously my father."

"I can handle—"

"No. You cannot." He's staring at the floor now, and that bothers me more than his blasé conclusions about what I can and cannot handle.

"Look at me, EJ."

"I saw you." He half-laughs, amused. "I think I'm still seeing stars."

I wait. Waiting works on EJ.

He raises his eyes. "All right. I'm looking at you." He meets my eyes like there's something painful about the whole thing. "Come on, talk."

I'm not sure where to begin. I hadn't expected to have this conversation today. EJ is right about the hospital being its own little bubble. I'd been focused on my daily rehab and talking with my family and mourning the daughter I never had a chance to anticipate. I'd barely considered what EJ was going through in his home and his business and the rest of Salem with his children suddenly gone and everyone scowling at him like he'd somehow debased the Horton princess or personally thrown me under the wheels of that car. "You've been trying really hard to put the past behind you."

"And it may be time for us both to put our relationship behind us. The fact that Samantha is out of the picture does not make us an appropriate match."

"I listened to you. Now listen to me. You were trying really hard to be the kind of man your father wasn't. Your father never got Dr. Evans, but you were going to have her daughter. You were going to have that perfect family with Sami. Mother, father, son, daughter, white picket fence. You had some really bad bumps along the road and everyone in Salem hated you. You were EJ the kidnapper, EJ the rapist. But you'd moved on. You'd built yourself up as EJ the businessman, EJ the protector. My cousin Will went from trying to kill you to relying on you more than anyone when he came out. Whenever anyone got into trouble—like what happened with Nick—everyone from Kate to Gabi looked for you to clean the mess up. Most importantly, once you had Sydney and Johnny you reinvented yourself as a father first and foremost. Then your wedding—it was horrible, and it was in public, and everyone got to hear everything that happened all over again. And when people realized that you and I had been together, they acted like you'd done something wrong, like anything bad that happened to me was your fault. Having children with Sami was one thing, but getting involved with little Abigail Deveraux, the Horton princess? That's different. You didn't want Johnny and Sydney to hear. That's why you were willing to let them leave town with Sami. You didn't want them to see people treating you like public enemy number one, like they did back in 2006. I know what that must feel like."

He's blinking rapidly, still not liking what he's hearing. "You don't know what anything feels like."

"It must hurt. It has to hurt, a lot. And you don't deserve it. You're not the same person."

"People don't change, Abigail."

"Yes, they do. You are not the same person! I don't care what you did. It was a long time ago. You are not the same person anymore, and everybody knows it. Even Sami."

It's probably the first time I've willingly, completely acknowledged Sami's role in EJ's life. He hurt her, and she didn't do anything to deserve it. She forgave him. It meant the world to him, and now it's over.

"Now that you've listened to me, talk to me," I encourage. "Please. I want to help. Tell me what happened that sent you from coming in here every day with presents to telling me we need to go our separate ways."

"I got a scolding from Stefano today," he says at last.

"About what?"

"You've already guessed. He did not care for my decision to send the children away with Samantha. He wants them raised as proper DiMeras. He wants me to push Samantha to alter the custody arrangements."

"Do you want to do that?"

"I don't know."

"Do you think it's a good idea?"

"I said, I don't know!" For the first time, he snaps at me and I can see exactly how bad the strain has been on him.

"I'm sorry," I say.

That frustrates him even more. Now the words come tumbling out, faster and less controlled than I've ever seen. "Don't be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry about. Look, Stefano and I have a relationship. He raised me from before I could walk or talk. That's deep. You don't forget about things that are that deep. That's heritage! You don't turn your back on heritage! That's a part of me!"

"I understand that," I say, and I really do. How often have I thought about living up to the Horton name? How often have Will and I joked about it?

"No. Listen to me, Abigail. Listen to me carefully. When you get out of this hospital tomorrow, find someone in this town. Ask anyone, ask your family or your friends or a complete stranger. Ask them who I am. They'll say I'm EJ DiMera, Stefano's son."

"You're not—"

"EJ DiMera, Stefano's son!" he repeats emphatically. "I might be younger, I might have made more concessions to normalcy and respectability, but deep down it's all the same."

"You're wrong!" I snap. "I don't believe what anybody says. I don't even believe you! I believe what I feel. With my whole heart."

I don't know where the impulse is coming from or how I'm sure that it's exactly the right thing to do, but I get myself out of the bed as EJ watches me carefully. He doesn't move as I get closer to him or wrap my hands around his neck.

So I pull him into the first real kiss we've had in months.

He kisses back. He kisses back hard and fierce and passionately and while I might have initiated the kiss I'm no longer the aggressor. It lasts and lasts and I'm wondering whether we should sneak off to the storage room where we once nearly made love when there's a sharp knock at the door. EJ lifts me off my feet and places me back on the bed, and we look nearly presentable when I call "come in."

It's my mom. "Hello, Abigail. Hello, EJ." Her voice is completely neutral. In fact, it's too neutral. I know that she overheard at least part of my argument with EJ.

"Mrs. Deveraux. I was just leaving," says EJ.

"You don't have to leave," says my mother. If I hadn't already known that she had overheard us, that would have confirmed it. My entire family always thinks that EJ should leave. She's making an exception because she's seeing him as a person who has feelings for once—or, more likely, because she feels a tiny bit guilty about eavesdropping. (Eavesdropping on me, that is. She respects my privacy. She figures EJ needs to be monitored at all times.)

"I don't want you to leave, EJ," I tell him, because it's always nice to hear that someone wants you around when you feel lousy.

"But I do want to leave." He sidesteps my mother neatly. "I'll see you, Abigail." He doesn't say when or where he'll see me, and that's something of a concern, but at least he isn't planning to vanish from my life completely.

When he's gone my mom sits on the edge of my bed and just stares at me.

For a while I plan to let her speak first. Then I determine that that is simply not going to happen, and I want this round of the conversation over with more than I want the petty victory of making her break the silence.

"How much did you hear?" I ask.

She looks me in the face, and her eyes are wide as if she's in shock. "A lot, Baby. I think I heard almost all of it."

I like that she didn't deny it, not that I expected her to. "So what are you waiting for?"

"I'm just trying to get my head around something, Abigail."

"I can't imagine that what you heard changed your mind about anything. You think EJ isn't good enough for me. You think he's too old and you think he's too dangerous and you think that he'll hurt me."

"All of those things are true. I do think those things."

"And now you're going to try to convince me never to see EJ again."

She shakes her head slowly. "No, Baby, I'm not going to do that." She still looks a little stunned.

"Why are you acting so weird? Is JJ okay? Did something happen with Daniel?"

"JJ is fine. Daniel is also fine. Daniel," she repeats with an awkward exhalation, as if she's just remembered Daniel's existence. "No, I was thinking of your father."

"And how he wouldn't want me with EJ either?"

"You know he wouldn't, Baby. You know that. We're being honest with each other here. He didn't even like the idea of you being with Chad, and EJ is a lot older and a lot more dangerous than Chad."

"I'm older than I was then, too."

"Yes, you are." She swallows hard. "You're an adult. You'll always be my little girl, but you're an adult and you know your own heart."

"What exactly did you hear?" I ask again.

She smiles, but looks like she's about to cry. "I heard your father and I heard myself. That argument that you were having with EJ was one that Jack and I could have had. It was one we did have, almost word for word, before you were born."

"No wonder you're so shaken up."

"It was downright eerie, Abigail. I've always looked at you and seen your father. I think that's natural. You have a baby and you want to see the person you love reflected there." I nod. Even though my baby wasn't big enough for me to see her that way, I know that that's exactly what I would have done. I would have looked for EJ in every inch of her and delighted when I found him. I do that with Johnny and Sydney, and they aren't even my children. "But today is one of those days that I just can't deny how much like me you are. When I fell in love with your father, he was the town pariah. That wasn't going to stop me." She laughs, and this time it's less painful. "I practically chased that poor man all over town begging him to let me love him."

"And it worked out. I mean, you had rough patches but—"

"EJ is not your father," she says firmly. "He's not your father, but I believe that you feel for him the way I felt for your father when I was your age." She rolls her eyes. "Even the age difference is almost exactly the same. I know I have to let you work through this. I don't want you to feel like it's something you have to hide because I'll interfere with your relationship or be rude to EJ or swoon onto the fainting couch because I'm so scandalized by what you're doing."

"There's an image."

"I wished that I could have had my mother here with me when I fell in love with Frankie, and then with your father. I don't want to take that away from you, too."

"I don't want that, either."

She grabs my hand and holds onto it. "Is this something that ever occurred to you? That superficially there are some similarities between EJ's situation now and your father's situation back then?"

"Sometimes I feel like I should get the words 'daddy issues' tattooed across my forehead. But knowing that, knowing that I miss him and I always wanted what you and he had, that doesn't change how I feel. It's like, knowing that I like the taste of ice cream because it's full of fat and sugar and things that aren't good for me doesn't make me not like the taste."

"Interesting comparison."

"I loved my father and I want to be with a man who has things in common with him. Is that so bad?"

"No. It's not. And if this thing that you have with EJ turns into something real when it's out there in the light of day instead of feeding on the whole forbidden aspect of itself, that will be okay. And if it turns out that a real relationship isn't what either of you want, that will be okay, too. So either way, it will be okay. Okay?"

"Okay."

And in that moment it feels like the truth.

_**TBC  
**_**  
Note/Disclaimer**: Longtime Days fans or Jack/Jennifer fans will know that the bulk of EJ and Abby's argument is a modification of a 1990 Jack/Jennifer scene. I can't post a link here, but a search of "Jack Jennifer believe" should bring it up on YouTube.


	15. Chapter 15

**Part 15**

The whole time that my mom is rushing around me, making sure everything is ready for my discharge, I look out of the corner of my eye for EJ.

I know he has mixed feelings. I know that he told me that things would change once I was out of the hospital and back home. I know that he's busy.

But it seems wrong that after visiting me every day, he isn't here.

And besides, he kissed me back.

He did.

Even though they have me set up with crutches and a walking cast and have forced me to demonstrate my ability to use them, protocol means that I take a wheelchair down to my mom's car.

I look in every shadow. I watch for every movement.

I see no one.

"Sorry, Baby," my mom tells me as we finally leave the hospital behind. "I know you were hoping to see EJ."

"He did tell me things would be different once I was released," I say. I don't like repeating it out loud any more than I like repeating it in my head. EJ had claimed that the minute I left the hospital hundreds of people would be after me, wanting to get to him through me. So far the outside world seems pretty quiet. It's a normal business day during a cool, rainy spring. It feels like everyone in the world is busy at work and school. The streets are deserted but for my mother and me. Even JJ is safely ensconced in Salem High School; he had wanted to take the morning off to bring me home, but that would have conflicted with a science test. Last year he wouldn't have cared, but this year he just promised to run home at lunch instead. He's done so much to turn his life around. And his new girlfriend, Paige, is a positive influence too. I like her a lot. Unlike me, JJ knows how to make a sane decision when it comes to his love life.

"What's that smile for?" my mom asks.

"Paige and JJ. You like her, right?"

"Don't you dare, Abigail!" She knocks on the fake wood on the side of the car. "Don't you jinx it."

I laugh. "Sorry."

"She's perfect, isn't she? I'm afraid we'll find out that there's some deep dark secret about her. Like she's Anne Milbauer's long-lost daughter sent to seduce JJ to take revenge on us. Or maybe one of your father's political enemies from way back when. One of those men could be her father."

I laugh again. "You don't think that's a little ridiculous?"

"I think it's probably not ridiculous enough. I've lived in Salem for a long time."

I'm so amused—and a little disturbed—at the thought that I nearly miss what I've been looking for all morning.

"There you go," my mom whispers quietly, and I can hear the fight in her voice. She wants to support what I want, but it will take her a long time to truly believe that this could ever be for the best.

EJ is standing there by our front door, waiting for us. For once he's in plain sight instead of the shadows. In his arms is a bouquet of flowers, the one thing he never brought me in the hospital. I had thought he might think they were too cliché. But maybe he was just waiting for the right time.

He defers to my mother as soon as we approach. "Mrs. Deveraux, if it's too soon for Abigail to have a visitor I will leave immediately. But I wanted to welcome her home and see if there was any assistance I could offer."

"It's not too soon," I say much too quickly. I'm never going to be good at this kind of thing. I'm always going to be too eager. But if that means he will never doubt my feelings, is that so bad? He's been married to Sami Brady and Nicole Walker. He's played enough games to last him a lifetime.

"Of course, come in, please," my mother agrees. "I actually have to go back to work anyway, so this works out."

I can't stop myself from raising my eyebrows in surprise. She absolutely does not have to go back to work. She took the day off even though I told her not to. She has taken her vow to let me explore my feelings for EJ in peace seriously.

"Just remember," she tells me as she turns to leave, "your brother is coming home to see you and lunch. As soon as his exam is finished."

As warnings go, it's extremely mild.

EJ settles me on the couch and then goes about putting the flowers in water. It pleases me to watch. While I knew that EJ was a perfectly functional adult who had lived on his own both in Salem and in Europe, it still seems odd to see him working at ordinary tasks when the DiMera mansion has a full staff. It all feels very domestic.

At last he sits beside me. "I didn't like the way we left things yesterday."

I know that he wants to have a serious conversation; I respect that, and I agree that we need to talk. But I can't resist. "You seemed to enjoy it at the time." I lean closer, making my intent inescapably obvious.

He smiles. "That's not what I meant, Abigail."

I'm close enough to feel his lips against mine when I speak. "Did you not like… this part?" And I kiss him again, and he kisses me back. Where yesterday's kiss was desperate, today's kiss is playful. Where yesterday's kiss was passionate, today's kiss is kind. I want to experience all of the kinds of kisses with EJ—and other things, too.

Then he bumps my bandaged wrist and I wince and I know that that's going to be it for now.

"You see?" he asks. "This is why we can't get too carried away. I don't want to see you hurt."

"What if I feel like being hurt is worth it?"

"Then that's your decision to make."

Not getting an argument from him, on top of not getting an argument from my mother, makes my head spin. "And I've made that decision."

"But we still need to go slowly, Abigail. You may change your mind when you come face to face with more of the reality of my being Stefano DiMera's chosen heir. It won't be the same as your situation with Chad. He was a grown man before he ever met our father."

"That's true." I still can't believe that the only two men I've ever made love to are brothers and DiMeras.

"I still have misgivings."

"I know you do. But if there's one thing I've learned since the truth about our affair came out, it's that a lot of the things we worry about never happen."

EJ shrugs. "Personally, I was worried that should that affair ever be revealed, Samantha would do you bodily harm in a fit of temper." He nods meaningfully at my crutches. "I was worried about losing my children, who are currently beginning a new life in another state."

"I'm not trying to belittle that. But Sami didn't hurt me on purpose. Even you don't think she did. And you were the one who decided that it was best for Johnny and Sydney to stay with Sami for now. It's not as if they hate you and never want to see you again."

"My point still stands."

"What I was worried about," I tell him, "was that I would change in everyone's eyes. That JJ would be angry at me for telling him to get his act together when my own act wasn't together. That my mother would feel like she'd failed with me, failed my father. That I'd be an embarrassment to my father's memory and that I'd tarnish my great-grandparents' legacy. That Will and I wouldn't be friends anymore. That people would stop seeing me as a good person, and that that would mean that I'm _not _a good person. But when people found out… nothing really happened. I guess it turns out that I'm just not all that important."

"You are very important to me. You're very important to all of those people."

"Maybe. I know that the Hortons and the DiMeras, those names mean almost completely opposite things in this town. And the legacies are very different, even though they both feel heavy sometimes. But can you even imagine that this could work out? That things won't be as bad as you thought?"

"No. I've lived in Salem too long."

"You and my mother have more in common than you think."

"We would almost have to."

"Maybe I'm pushing you too fast," I admit. "I've had a lot of time to think about who I am and who my family is. I had to resolve who I thought I was supposed to be with the person who loves you, even though it turned out that those two people weren't as different as I thought they were. You haven't had that time. You were busy trying to hold your family together and handle Sami and your business and you haven't had a chance to—"

Then, to my surprise, he laces his fingers through mine. "Yes, Abigail, I have allowed for the possibility, however slight, that this could work. In fact, I brought you something in addition to the flowers." He removes an envelope from inside his coat and hands it to me.

Inside are two airplane tickets; the old fashioned kind that you don't see much now that everyone buys their tickets on the internet. I look at the destination.

"Dresden," I breathe. Dresden, home of Raphael's _Sistine Madonna_. I don't have to say it, and neither does he.

"I want you to hold onto these. If, in three months, you do not want to go to Dresden with me, you go with someone else. Or you exchange them and go somewhere else. Go with Gabriela to South America. Take your brother to London to see how your friends are doing. Have that vacation I interrupted."

"Both of those things sound nice," I tell him. "But not as nice as Dresden with you. And you traveling without the DiMera jet! You're slumming it for me." I check the tickets again. "Well, they _are _first class."

"Of course they are, Abigail, we're not animals."

He keeps a straight face, but his eyes are sparkling. I kiss him again.

**The End**

_Thank you for reading and reviewing this strange little fic, which for a soap opera fic doesn't have much romance to it. It definitely wanted to be a story about Abby coming to terms with loving EJ more than a story about EJ/Abby getting together and belonging together for ever and ever. I did love that the show made a point of showing Abby struggling to resolve her beloved Horton Princess status with what she found herself doing with EJ, and I guess I wanted more. So here it is._


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